Nice chapter. Have a few grammar edits:
The Wondrous Weaving of Wizardry
- Thread starter Witherbrine26
- Start date
Thank you for the corrections!
- Location
- washington
ngl its pretty hilarious how many female specific species/powers/templates they have. I bet some magic systems probably identify them as female at this point lol.
Chapter 62
Starting my chant, I spoke loudly as I raised my hands into the air. The words left my mouth as the ground shuddered, and I felt the mana leaving my soul in a wave.
The primal words flew from my lips as the candle flickered and the water thrashed around. The wind bellowed, and the soil inched towards Remilia as she looked around, still confident despite the disruption happening around her.
The circles glowed as the outer one mixed with blood and dust seemed to strain as even more mana pooled into the inner rings. The energy seeped down into the floors and the walls, and for a split second, I could feel a massive presence's gaze settle on me.
However, it soon vanished, and I returned to the ritual, fortunately not messing anything up in the short time the being had looked at me. I could tell the end of the ritual was approaching as the four representations of the elementals had vanished, and the circles slowly merged into the largest one on the edge of the room.
Continuing my chant, I grit my teeth as I am forced to pull more deeply on my magic circuits, and the pain flares up in my chest. It was clear that I hadn't done a very good job translating the ritual out of the Nasuverse, which was only compounded by making edits to make it work with this room.
Normally the world would be doing the heavy lifting. Due to it not being truly alive like it was back in the Nasuverse and me only using the bare minimum required to count as connecting to the land, I was forced to shoulder the vast majority of the mana cost.
Slowing down my words, I felt the last of the ritual slowly petter out as the final circle vanished, and I stumbled against the wall. Patchouli promptly flew inside and started looking over Remilia, who was looking around the room and her hands in wonder.
Taking ragged gasps, I slumped further down and rested my parasol on my lap as I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes.
Taking slow breaths, I felt the pain in my chest settle down as the magic circuits started to settle down from me stressing them by pulling forth more magic than I really should have.
I opened my eyes when I felt a brush of wind blow past me and saw that Remilia was gone from the throne room, leaving behind a frustrated Patchouli and Sakuya walking up to me.
"Lady Remilia has requested that I escort you to the dining room," The silver-haired maid said as I staggered to my feet and followed after her.
Almost a minute later, we arrived at the dining room, and I slumped down in a chair as Sakuya walked off and returned moments later with a cup of water that I gratefully gulped down.
A few moments later, another large gust of wind blew past me, revealing Remilia, who, in complete opposition to her normal, mostly refined, and elegant persona, was grinning so wide that it almost split her face in two.
Darting towards me, she wrapped her arms around my stomach and pulled me out of the chair. She then spun around, giggling as she squeezed tight.
As I felt my ribs creaking, I frantically slapped her arm, causing her to release me, allowing my body to drop to the floor before I floated back to my feet.
"I felt it!" She shouted no less happy, "The sun on my skin, and I didn't burn; I can go for a swim!" She continued, her eyes darting around as if she was cataloging everything she could now do.
Gripping my hand in a flurry of motion, she pulled me off my feet and at a speed that was closer to teleportation than physical movement, we arrived in front of a solid steel door.
Catching myself, I grit my teeth in pain as the Flames of Agony snapped my damaged arm back in place. "One moment," I said to the restless vampire as she pushed open the thick doors.
"Come on," she whined. "You're doing that ritual for Flandre; she can finally go out in the day!" It was clear that she was exuberant, and while it was nice to see somebody so happy, I did have to rain on her parade.
"I'm afraid I'm going to need a few hours," I said, resulting in her stopping her frantic movement and looking up at me in confusion. "I burned all of my mana on that ritual as well as straining my magic circuits, so I need rest so I don't damage anything or die,"
Her face twitched in irritation, but she was smart enough to know that if I died due to trying to push me ahead of what was safe, her sister would never be able to walk in the sun.
I also needed to make contact with that being that had peered at me while I was casting; it felt remarkably similar to the dragon that resided in the barrier, and I almost failed due to it looking at me, so I needed to at least ensure it wouldn't actively attempt to stop me.
"I'll be back in a few hours, but I'm going to head out and take a nap," I said, turning around and swinging my parasol onto my shoulder when I heard Remilia clear her voice from behind me.
"Well, you could always stay here for your nap, we have plenty of rooms, and I do need to give you your payment." She said in a voice that clearly wanted me to stay here so that I could get working as soon as I woke up.
To be honest, I didn't care and just wanted to sleep soon, so I turned back to face her and nodded, resulting in her bringing up as she called out her maid's name.
Time shuttered to a stop once again, and I sighed before waiting for Sakuya to arrive. Around a minute later, as the Grimoire grew, she rounded the corner, and time restarted.
"Aidan will be staying here for a bit; show him to a room and ensure he is not disturbed," Remilia ordered, to which Sakuya nodded and started walking off me, following in her wake.
We soon arrived in a location that had many more fairies than I had seen throughout the manor, and unlike the few I had met before, these were all clad in maid dresses and cleaning in a manner that, while sloppy, was cleaning the hall.
Sakuya then pulled open a door showing me a small but cozy room with a bed, dresser, and end table. Walking in, I turned to thank the silver-haired maid.
"Thank you, I'm going to be taking a nap, so I'll likely be sleeping for a few hours," I said. She bowed and closed the door with a soft click; dismissing my robes and parasol, I climbed into the bed and sighed, relaxing into the very soft bed.
Casting my gaze at the ceiling of the room, I switched on my mage sight. I looked past the manor's heavy magical aura, past the dense concentration of magic in the air, and towards the barrier that surrounded the entire land of fantasy.
I could feel a headache growing, but I pushed past the incredibly dense, almost solid wall of mana that formed the barrier and looked inside it, witnessing the same massive dragon carcass I had seen earlier.
Unlikely earlier, I saw its body shift slightly and witnessed the barrier twitching before I retracted my sight. Dismissing my magesight, I groaned as I lay back in bed, rubbing my brow as a headache started to spring up.
That was a poor idea, and it didn't even do all that much as it seemed I would need to go to the Reimu's shrine to communicate with the dragon. Even if it was mostly dead, it was at least somewhat able to communicate and peer around Gensoyko. However, it seemed like it was only looking at me because of the new ritual I performed. It wouldn't be a problem in the future.
Closing my eyes, I relaxed and soon was swept away into sleep. Unfortunately, I was woken up when I slowly blinked and saw an open door in front of me and a blank white space behind me.
Slowly standing up, I felt a bit strange when I noticed that I was clad in my robes and parasol, even though I had dismissed them when I went to bed.
Walking forward, I saw a girl who seemed to be a little under ten sitting on her bed as a black figure writhed under the bed, tears staining her cheeks as she flinched away every time the being attempted to claw up the side of the bed to reach her.
Frowning, I strode forward and, in a quick moment, sent a single Eldritch Blast at the being under the bed, holding back so as not to blow up the bed.
The being vanished as the blast of eldritch magic hit it, and the girl looked up at me, her eyes growing wide as she threw herself off the bed, grabbed me around the neck, and tightened into a hug.
I instinctively dropped my parasol and settled my hands under her to prevent her from falling and pulling me down with her. Clearing my voice, I spoke softly to her, "Hello, what is your name?"
Looking up at me, she grinned, tears still staining her cheeks but much happier than she had been moments ago, "It worked!" She cheered her hand, releasing from my neck as she danced around on the ground, her nightdressed flapping about as she smiled.
"What worked?" I asked as she slowly started to settle down before turning to me, "The dream lady said to wish for you to arrive, and you would; I'm not having a nightmare anymore!" She cheered before running and climbing back under her covers.
"Goodnight, dream man!" She said, waving to me before rolling over; despite her statement, tremors still ran up and down her body as she shook with pent-up energy; I could even feel a warmth pooling in my chest.
I smiled as the dream broke apart, and in between one blink and the next, I was in the city streets of a massive old city. Looking around, I could tell, despite the empty streets, this was Vienna, the city I had visited to see my extended family.
I then saw the Santa hatted figure of Doremy sitting on a bench while munching on a bratwurst. As she caught my gaze, she gave waved me over.
Sitting next to her, I placed the tip of my parasol between my feet and waited for her to finish her meal, I doubted she needed to eat, but that was no reason to be rude.
"Well then," Doremy said, swallowing the last bite of the steaming sausage, "You got your first worshipper; it shouldn't take that long to get some more, at least in her neighborhood."
"I see," I said calmly, even as inside I was screaming, I had only wanted the passive faith from a good dream here and there, but it seemed that I would be getting the complete godly package.
Doremy giggled as she looked at my face and threw an arm around my shoulder before ruffling my hair, "You'll do fine," she drawled before continuing as she had been before, "Anyway, if you want to speed it up; you'll have to give her a blessing or two with that faith you've gathered,"
My hand reached towards my chest, and I could feel the few drops of warmth that had started pooling when the little girl thanked me. "This is faith?" I asked hoarsely as I dipped a metaphorical hand into it.
It was incredibly heavy like it could hold up the sky, but at the same time, I could tell that so long as I moved it down the paths my domains held, I could do almost anything.
"Yup," the Baku chirped while poking my chest, "The most valuable thing in the universe and what makes the Earth go round."
I then felt the Grimoire pulse and grow as I stumbled, feeling for the faintest moments a sense of deja vu as my vision blurred for a moment and peering at Doremy, I saw something with too many eyes that caused me to blink a few times before my vision settled back on the smug Santa hat wearing Baku had I come to know.
Looking at my pale face, she hummed and leaned forward, looking up at me as she moved her fingers around slightly, and the realms around us warped slightly.
"You seem to be noticing something; I've altered the Dreamworld so that you shouldn't have any issues," She said, her smile fading for a moment as a small expression of concern overtook her face, but when I blinked, it was back to her normal smile.
Holding up a finger, I almost wanted to approach what she had just said, but I decided to move back toward the topic of godhood.
"So you're telling me I'm a god now?" I asked. I didn't know how faith worked, but there was something strange and terrifying about the little drops in my chest. I had messed around with it before in the form of my collecter, but that would take around a whole day to gather the amount I received from helping a single child with her nightmare.
"You already were a god," Doremy said, floating forward to poke me in the chest, "I just stirred up a few of the more gullible to reach out to you; give it a few days you'll be a full-fledged dream god, and once that happens I'll be expecting you to hold up your end of the deal."
"I see," I said, still grappling with the idea that I would have followers soon, I had been granted godhood by the Grimoire, but it was just another of the incredible abilities it gave me. However, this one had the potential to shake the foundation of the world in a much more passive way than my other skills.
I could crack the Earth with the Dawnbreaker or make nature follow the whims of a single person with a ritual, but this one was developing a religion that, while slow to start, could spread and have massive dominoes.
"How will I answer their calls if I can only receive them while sleeping?" I asked if I wanted to help and bless them, but I also was busy and didn't want to spend my sleeping hours helping people all the time.
"Once you are officially the god of dreams, you can spend a bit of faith to break off small chunks of yourself; they can deal with worshippers instead of you. Of course, they only have as much energy as the faith you put inside them, so be careful," She explained before clapping her hands, "Anyway, you're waking up now, so good luck, and I'll see you in a few days."
I then felt the world around me melt away into the pink dream stuff that Doremy used, and for a moment, I saw dozens of eyes and tendrils creeping out of the ruler of the Dreamworld's body before I woke up.
Sitting up, I looked around while scratching my chest; it felt strange to sleep while wearing a shirt, as for at least five or six years, I had not.
Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I resumed my robes and parasol while taking a deep breath luxuriating in the absence of the soul-deep ache I had felt when straining my magic circuits.
I also enjoyed the specks of faith floating around my chest, it felt almost like a heater, and its mere presence bolstered my confidence.
Smiling, I walked outside the small room; I had been resting in, absently noting that it was approaching late afternoon, which meant that if I were going to perform the ritual for Flandre, I would be unable to talk to the village people until late tomorrow or the day after given I was going to be training with Yuuka and having another fight with Tenshi.
Following the path I had been led to arrive at the room, I soon emerged in the dining room, where I saw Remilia and Flandre playing chess while munching on what looked like red velvet cupcakes.
Upon seeing me walk in, Flandre spun around her wrought iron wings, almost smacking into Remilia and knocking over a few species. It was clear that she was playing chess to indulge Remilia, given the state of the board and how her species were spread out almost randomly while her sisters were played out commonly.
Flandre grinned widely with glee in her red eyes as she sprung to her feet, "Hello, are you here to play!" She asked loudly with exuberance in her voice, causing Remilia to sigh softly and tug on Flandre's sleeve before explaining.
"Aidan will be performing a ritual that will allow you to walk in the sun and water," Remilia said, somewhat nervous, but it was clear that no matter what concerns she held, she was willing to push them aside to assist Flandre.
The other vampire froze, her strange iron and crystal wings stopping behind her as she turned to face her sister. "Really?" She asked softly and in a tone so different from the happy, childlike manner I had always heard her talking in since meeting her.
"Yes," Remilia said in reply, standing up as well, her hands twitching as she clasped them behind her back while both Flandre and her started at each other an undercurrent of tension filled the room as the Grimoire grew.
Stepping forward, I smiled and approached the table that Remilia and Flandre were standing at. "So, where would you like for me to perform the ritual?" I asked, breaking the growing tension between the two as they turned to look at me.
"I suppose the basement," Flandre said in a flat tone that had Remilia wincing as she strode off, the crystal's on her wings clinking.
Following behind her, Flandre and I left Remilia behind as we walked toward yet another part of the manor I had not seen. While I knew that the mansion's interior had been messed with, the magic layered on it was still astounding.
I couldn't spot a single spell anchoring the magic in place, which meant somebody was keeping the entire mansion twisted like a pretzel through their own skill and mental focus. While they likely had tools and other foci to ease the strain, it was still awe-inspiring.
We then arrived at a locked iron door that Flandre threw open with nary an effort despite the fact when it slammed into the wall, the entire hallway shuddered.
Following her down the stairs, it was clear to see that this part was much less traveled as dust coated the walls and only flickering dim electrical light showed the path down the hallway.
We soon arrived at another massive thick iron door that Flandre opened with only a hint more effort than the one at the entrance to the basement.
Stepping inside, I realized a depressing sight; the room was clearly a bedroom with a large bed, a dresser, dozens of small toys, and other things that made a bedroom look like a home.
However, there was a prevailing feeling that something was off, and it didn't click until Flandre hopped on the bed, and I spotted something broken made of wood under the bed.
While Flandre didn't mind living down here, there was a small part of her that resented being in the basement while her sister lived above in a lavish room.
"Well, I just need the ingredients, and we can get started," I said, ignoring the prevailing mood causing Flandre to brighten up as she brushed aside the bad thoughts.
"Alright, what do you need?" She asked, hopping off the bed and striding up to me as time slammed to a halt, and I sighed again.
It seemed that Sakuya was being sent after us, and I was proven correct as after a few minutes, the silver-haired maid stepped through the open iron door carrying the supplies for the ritual.
Setting them, she gave me a bow despite my seemingly frozen state and walked away, the clicking of her heels fading away as time restarted with a click.
Flandre frowned as she saw the items piled on the floor before shaking her head and stepping back, "Anything else?" She asked, looking over the four ingredients almost skeptically.
"Nope," I replied cheerfully as I started setting up the ritual. It was almost identical to the one I performed on Remilia, with a few minor alterations to fit the smaller room I was performing in.
Soon enough, I had the seven circles made from blood and dust, with Flandre standing in the middle. Stepping outside the room, I took a deep breath, not happy about the pain I would be feeling soon, but the soothing warmth of the faith in my chest caused me to relax slightly.
Holding out my hands, I started to chant under the gaze of Flandre, who seemed to have shaken herself out of the funk she had fallen into for a few minutes and was twitching, causing her wings to move around a create a slight tinkling sound.
My chant continued as mana was pulled from me with a torrent that had me almost stumbling, and I once again felt the gaze of the dragon that lay inside the barrier, seemingly a long ingrained response that persisted after death.
The candle's flame grew as air blew inside the room, causing Flandre's skirt to flap as she twitched and kept a close eye on the splashing water. However, as I pulled deeper and started to touch my magic circuits, I felt a fleck of faith travel up my hand and into the ritual.
That tiny spark exploded, and a torrent of mana surged into the ritual, forcing me to franticly grasp hold of the fragile formation and wrangle the newly created mana into the pattern I was following.
Continuing on, I didn't have to pull on my magic critics, and the ritual concluded shortly after with me much less tired and only forced to lean on my parasol somewhat.
Much like her sister before her, Flandre looked over her hands, walked over to the wall, and gently laid a hand on it. However, unlike her sister, her eyes traveled across the room and down her body as if searching for something.
Then I took a few steps back as a familiar feeling overtook me, and Flandre held out her hand as if something was resting in it. This felt like the brief moment before I died when Flandre and the heat that Destruction's mere presence brought.
That had unfortunate implications on her powers, but considering that the mansion was standing and people weren't dying regularly meant, she had control of her power, and I could push off any questions.
Walking slowly out of the room, she spoke to me calmly in a manner unlike the childish exuberance or deadly flat tone I had seen her talk in before, "Do you mind coming outside with me?"
Nodding, I followed after her seeing the tiny twitches in her body as she forced herself to walk and not run through the halls to get outside faster.
The Grimoire grew as we finally left the manor and into the midafternoon sun. Flandre hesitated on the doorstep before taking a cautious step into the light.
She flinched as the light covered her body; however, there was no burning or even a slight tinge of her skin. A smile crept across her face. She spun around, and the sun played across her face without burning her.
Laughter bubbled from her lips as she pushed off the ground and hung in the air, a simple, joyful smile on her face, all anger and negative thoughts forgotten in the face of warm sunlight on her face.
Hering faint footsteps, I turned to my side and saw Remilia standing beside me, a nostalgic smile on her face as she watched Flandre dance in the sun.
"Thank you," she rasped, clearly doing her best to keep her course, "If you ever need anything, and I mean absolutely anything, let me know, and I'll see what I can do," She promised, not accepting pushback. So I gave her a nod and watched as she joined her sister, floating up to her in the afternoon light.
Feeling a faint burn behind my eyes, I smiled at the happy sight and started walking toward the gate. I could retrieve my payment the next time I stopped by; there was no need to interpret the sister's enjoyment to discuss payment.
I was, however, stopped by a time, slowing to a halt with a clicking sound. Standing still, I saw Sakuya approaching with an envelope in her hand; time resumed as she handed the thick envelope to me, and checking inside, I saw a large sum of money that I tucked away.
"I know the mistress may have already said this, but thank you, sincerely," Sakuya said, and for a moment, I was not looking at the perfect time to stop maid Sakuya, but the person who had been with Remilia for years, possibly Centrius and deeply appreciated what I, had done.
Giving her a wry smile, I replied, "No problem, just doing my job," then I nodded politely and to my leave, saying goodbye to the gate guard as well, which for once was wide awake and peering through the steel gate at the two small vampires frolicking in the sunlight.
Striding off, I made my way past the lake covered with mist and towards the Human Village. Distorting space to speed up my journey, I arrived quickly and landed in front of the gate, startling both of the guards.
Their hands tightened on the guns as they both looked at me casually; I mentally frowned but pushed it off as startlingly as I walked forward.
"Good afternoon," I said, giving them a polite nod, "I am looking to purchase some property in the village. Who should I talk to arrange that," I continued, causing both of them to exchange looks before the one on the right spoke.
"For youkai business, you would want to speak with Miss Kamishirasawa; you can find her near the school on the outskirts of town to the right. But no funny business, understood?"
"Understood," I said before walking past them and towards where he said the school was. Despite the village's large size, I was able to weave in between people, and with my keen sight, I spotted what I presumed to be the school based on the students leaving. Continuing on my way towards it, I ignored the preachers talking about the sun, the merchants attempting to hawk their wares, and, in one case, a young teen who attempted to shoulder-check me but backed down when I gave him a look.
Raising an eyebrow, I spotted three figures I hadn't anticipated residing inside the village. Rumia, Wriggle, and Crino were floating out of the school under the watchful gaze of a woman wearing a bizarre hat; it was a blue box decorated with a red ribbon at the top along with silver lace on the side. The end result looked somewhat like a small house.
Waiting a few minutes for the kids and youkai to disperse, noting that while Kamishirasawa treated both mostly equally, the parents seemed eager to retrieve the children away from the youkai but more as a precaution and less true fear.
Walking towards the woman, my eyes took in her form and made a note of the strange silver hair highlighted with blue; I didn't know if that was merely a factor of this world given that Sakuya had silver hair but given that the other humans had normal hair suggested that this teacher might have non-human ancestry.
"Hello, Miss Kamishirasawa," I said, stumbling over the name and butchering the end of it, causing the woman to giggle slightly, her eyes dancing with mirth. It was clear that other people had this issue before.
"Please call me Keine. I understand my last name can be cumbersome," She said in a polite voice that belayed a hint of something more and caused me to take a closer look at her.
Looking slightly closer, I could tell that my dominance of the moon held heavy power over her, which only reinforced my idea that she had non-human ancestors, but given most people's cation towards youkai, I decided against bringing it up.
"What can I do to help you," She said not noticing or uncaring of my closer look at her nature, "I am looking to purchase property in the village for a project of mine," I said, resting the tip of my parasol on the ground and letting my hands relax on its handle.
"What project is that?" She asked, slightly more wary now but still willing to hear me out. "I am looking to build a shrine; you see, I'm a new god here," I replied, resulting in Keine nodding in understanding before frowning slightly.
"I'm afraid you can't buy property inside the village as we have an agreement to not sell to youkai, gods, or other nonhumans to prevent any from gaining an edge over others." I frowned as while that made sense; it was still irritating.
However, before I could reply, she continued. "However, you would be allowed to build your shrine on the outskirts so long as it is not intrusive and you follow the laws, no robbery, no coercing worshippers, and so on."
"Thank you," I said, nodding in agreement, "Where should I mark, and how much will it cost," I continued as the Grimoire grew, causing me to wince slightly as dozens of new scraps of knowledge and tricks entered my head along with a neat trick to prevent your average joe from breaking into my home.
"Let me retrieve one of the council members, and we can find a suitable location," She said, smiling gently as she gestured for me to follow her into the depths of the Human Village, and with a similar smile, I did.
Powers Gained
Mind's Eye
Your affinity to Secret Histories manifests through your sight, allowing you to see in low light conditions and through supernatural illusions.
Specialties (Nomad's Desert Life)
Surviving in the Desert Lands is a struggle. You gain an ability to conserve water, ride camels and a plethora of common desert survival knowledge with a small boost to being able to go longer without water in hot climates. But the best thing is... you've learned how to create a cultural Taboo like what was once around the Desert Pyramid. Small children and their dares would be far too scared to ever cross your word, the common grave robber or thief would hesitate to tread within the boundaries of land the taboo is set on, but hardened souls with a purpose won't falter so easily. In other words it will keep the laymen off a property you own, but not the settings villains, big bads, or cronies sent by a villain to burn your house down. The rest? They'll think wherever you've set this is cursed. Surely keeping hapless common folk away from a set plot of land of yours where they could hurt themselves (or annoy you) is worth something right?
The primal words flew from my lips as the candle flickered and the water thrashed around. The wind bellowed, and the soil inched towards Remilia as she looked around, still confident despite the disruption happening around her.
The circles glowed as the outer one mixed with blood and dust seemed to strain as even more mana pooled into the inner rings. The energy seeped down into the floors and the walls, and for a split second, I could feel a massive presence's gaze settle on me.
However, it soon vanished, and I returned to the ritual, fortunately not messing anything up in the short time the being had looked at me. I could tell the end of the ritual was approaching as the four representations of the elementals had vanished, and the circles slowly merged into the largest one on the edge of the room.
Continuing my chant, I grit my teeth as I am forced to pull more deeply on my magic circuits, and the pain flares up in my chest. It was clear that I hadn't done a very good job translating the ritual out of the Nasuverse, which was only compounded by making edits to make it work with this room.
Normally the world would be doing the heavy lifting. Due to it not being truly alive like it was back in the Nasuverse and me only using the bare minimum required to count as connecting to the land, I was forced to shoulder the vast majority of the mana cost.
Slowing down my words, I felt the last of the ritual slowly petter out as the final circle vanished, and I stumbled against the wall. Patchouli promptly flew inside and started looking over Remilia, who was looking around the room and her hands in wonder.
Taking ragged gasps, I slumped further down and rested my parasol on my lap as I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes.
Taking slow breaths, I felt the pain in my chest settle down as the magic circuits started to settle down from me stressing them by pulling forth more magic than I really should have.
I opened my eyes when I felt a brush of wind blow past me and saw that Remilia was gone from the throne room, leaving behind a frustrated Patchouli and Sakuya walking up to me.
"Lady Remilia has requested that I escort you to the dining room," The silver-haired maid said as I staggered to my feet and followed after her.
Almost a minute later, we arrived at the dining room, and I slumped down in a chair as Sakuya walked off and returned moments later with a cup of water that I gratefully gulped down.
A few moments later, another large gust of wind blew past me, revealing Remilia, who, in complete opposition to her normal, mostly refined, and elegant persona, was grinning so wide that it almost split her face in two.
Darting towards me, she wrapped her arms around my stomach and pulled me out of the chair. She then spun around, giggling as she squeezed tight.
As I felt my ribs creaking, I frantically slapped her arm, causing her to release me, allowing my body to drop to the floor before I floated back to my feet.
"I felt it!" She shouted no less happy, "The sun on my skin, and I didn't burn; I can go for a swim!" She continued, her eyes darting around as if she was cataloging everything she could now do.
Gripping my hand in a flurry of motion, she pulled me off my feet and at a speed that was closer to teleportation than physical movement, we arrived in front of a solid steel door.
Catching myself, I grit my teeth in pain as the Flames of Agony snapped my damaged arm back in place. "One moment," I said to the restless vampire as she pushed open the thick doors.
"Come on," she whined. "You're doing that ritual for Flandre; she can finally go out in the day!" It was clear that she was exuberant, and while it was nice to see somebody so happy, I did have to rain on her parade.
"I'm afraid I'm going to need a few hours," I said, resulting in her stopping her frantic movement and looking up at me in confusion. "I burned all of my mana on that ritual as well as straining my magic circuits, so I need rest so I don't damage anything or die,"
Her face twitched in irritation, but she was smart enough to know that if I died due to trying to push me ahead of what was safe, her sister would never be able to walk in the sun.
I also needed to make contact with that being that had peered at me while I was casting; it felt remarkably similar to the dragon that resided in the barrier, and I almost failed due to it looking at me, so I needed to at least ensure it wouldn't actively attempt to stop me.
"I'll be back in a few hours, but I'm going to head out and take a nap," I said, turning around and swinging my parasol onto my shoulder when I heard Remilia clear her voice from behind me.
"Well, you could always stay here for your nap, we have plenty of rooms, and I do need to give you your payment." She said in a voice that clearly wanted me to stay here so that I could get working as soon as I woke up.
To be honest, I didn't care and just wanted to sleep soon, so I turned back to face her and nodded, resulting in her bringing up as she called out her maid's name.
Time shuttered to a stop once again, and I sighed before waiting for Sakuya to arrive. Around a minute later, as the Grimoire grew, she rounded the corner, and time restarted.
"Aidan will be staying here for a bit; show him to a room and ensure he is not disturbed," Remilia ordered, to which Sakuya nodded and started walking off me, following in her wake.
We soon arrived in a location that had many more fairies than I had seen throughout the manor, and unlike the few I had met before, these were all clad in maid dresses and cleaning in a manner that, while sloppy, was cleaning the hall.
Sakuya then pulled open a door showing me a small but cozy room with a bed, dresser, and end table. Walking in, I turned to thank the silver-haired maid.
"Thank you, I'm going to be taking a nap, so I'll likely be sleeping for a few hours," I said. She bowed and closed the door with a soft click; dismissing my robes and parasol, I climbed into the bed and sighed, relaxing into the very soft bed.
Casting my gaze at the ceiling of the room, I switched on my mage sight. I looked past the manor's heavy magical aura, past the dense concentration of magic in the air, and towards the barrier that surrounded the entire land of fantasy.
I could feel a headache growing, but I pushed past the incredibly dense, almost solid wall of mana that formed the barrier and looked inside it, witnessing the same massive dragon carcass I had seen earlier.
Unlikely earlier, I saw its body shift slightly and witnessed the barrier twitching before I retracted my sight. Dismissing my magesight, I groaned as I lay back in bed, rubbing my brow as a headache started to spring up.
That was a poor idea, and it didn't even do all that much as it seemed I would need to go to the Reimu's shrine to communicate with the dragon. Even if it was mostly dead, it was at least somewhat able to communicate and peer around Gensoyko. However, it seemed like it was only looking at me because of the new ritual I performed. It wouldn't be a problem in the future.
Closing my eyes, I relaxed and soon was swept away into sleep. Unfortunately, I was woken up when I slowly blinked and saw an open door in front of me and a blank white space behind me.
Slowly standing up, I felt a bit strange when I noticed that I was clad in my robes and parasol, even though I had dismissed them when I went to bed.
Walking forward, I saw a girl who seemed to be a little under ten sitting on her bed as a black figure writhed under the bed, tears staining her cheeks as she flinched away every time the being attempted to claw up the side of the bed to reach her.
Frowning, I strode forward and, in a quick moment, sent a single Eldritch Blast at the being under the bed, holding back so as not to blow up the bed.
The being vanished as the blast of eldritch magic hit it, and the girl looked up at me, her eyes growing wide as she threw herself off the bed, grabbed me around the neck, and tightened into a hug.
I instinctively dropped my parasol and settled my hands under her to prevent her from falling and pulling me down with her. Clearing my voice, I spoke softly to her, "Hello, what is your name?"
Looking up at me, she grinned, tears still staining her cheeks but much happier than she had been moments ago, "It worked!" She cheered her hand, releasing from my neck as she danced around on the ground, her nightdressed flapping about as she smiled.
"What worked?" I asked as she slowly started to settle down before turning to me, "The dream lady said to wish for you to arrive, and you would; I'm not having a nightmare anymore!" She cheered before running and climbing back under her covers.
"Goodnight, dream man!" She said, waving to me before rolling over; despite her statement, tremors still ran up and down her body as she shook with pent-up energy; I could even feel a warmth pooling in my chest.
I smiled as the dream broke apart, and in between one blink and the next, I was in the city streets of a massive old city. Looking around, I could tell, despite the empty streets, this was Vienna, the city I had visited to see my extended family.
I then saw the Santa hatted figure of Doremy sitting on a bench while munching on a bratwurst. As she caught my gaze, she gave waved me over.
Sitting next to her, I placed the tip of my parasol between my feet and waited for her to finish her meal, I doubted she needed to eat, but that was no reason to be rude.
"Well then," Doremy said, swallowing the last bite of the steaming sausage, "You got your first worshipper; it shouldn't take that long to get some more, at least in her neighborhood."
"I see," I said calmly, even as inside I was screaming, I had only wanted the passive faith from a good dream here and there, but it seemed that I would be getting the complete godly package.
Doremy giggled as she looked at my face and threw an arm around my shoulder before ruffling my hair, "You'll do fine," she drawled before continuing as she had been before, "Anyway, if you want to speed it up; you'll have to give her a blessing or two with that faith you've gathered,"
My hand reached towards my chest, and I could feel the few drops of warmth that had started pooling when the little girl thanked me. "This is faith?" I asked hoarsely as I dipped a metaphorical hand into it.
It was incredibly heavy like it could hold up the sky, but at the same time, I could tell that so long as I moved it down the paths my domains held, I could do almost anything.
"Yup," the Baku chirped while poking my chest, "The most valuable thing in the universe and what makes the Earth go round."
I then felt the Grimoire pulse and grow as I stumbled, feeling for the faintest moments a sense of deja vu as my vision blurred for a moment and peering at Doremy, I saw something with too many eyes that caused me to blink a few times before my vision settled back on the smug Santa hat wearing Baku had I come to know.
Looking at my pale face, she hummed and leaned forward, looking up at me as she moved her fingers around slightly, and the realms around us warped slightly.
"You seem to be noticing something; I've altered the Dreamworld so that you shouldn't have any issues," She said, her smile fading for a moment as a small expression of concern overtook her face, but when I blinked, it was back to her normal smile.
Holding up a finger, I almost wanted to approach what she had just said, but I decided to move back toward the topic of godhood.
"So you're telling me I'm a god now?" I asked. I didn't know how faith worked, but there was something strange and terrifying about the little drops in my chest. I had messed around with it before in the form of my collecter, but that would take around a whole day to gather the amount I received from helping a single child with her nightmare.
"You already were a god," Doremy said, floating forward to poke me in the chest, "I just stirred up a few of the more gullible to reach out to you; give it a few days you'll be a full-fledged dream god, and once that happens I'll be expecting you to hold up your end of the deal."
"I see," I said, still grappling with the idea that I would have followers soon, I had been granted godhood by the Grimoire, but it was just another of the incredible abilities it gave me. However, this one had the potential to shake the foundation of the world in a much more passive way than my other skills.
I could crack the Earth with the Dawnbreaker or make nature follow the whims of a single person with a ritual, but this one was developing a religion that, while slow to start, could spread and have massive dominoes.
"How will I answer their calls if I can only receive them while sleeping?" I asked if I wanted to help and bless them, but I also was busy and didn't want to spend my sleeping hours helping people all the time.
"Once you are officially the god of dreams, you can spend a bit of faith to break off small chunks of yourself; they can deal with worshippers instead of you. Of course, they only have as much energy as the faith you put inside them, so be careful," She explained before clapping her hands, "Anyway, you're waking up now, so good luck, and I'll see you in a few days."
I then felt the world around me melt away into the pink dream stuff that Doremy used, and for a moment, I saw dozens of eyes and tendrils creeping out of the ruler of the Dreamworld's body before I woke up.
Sitting up, I looked around while scratching my chest; it felt strange to sleep while wearing a shirt, as for at least five or six years, I had not.
Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I resumed my robes and parasol while taking a deep breath luxuriating in the absence of the soul-deep ache I had felt when straining my magic circuits.
I also enjoyed the specks of faith floating around my chest, it felt almost like a heater, and its mere presence bolstered my confidence.
Smiling, I walked outside the small room; I had been resting in, absently noting that it was approaching late afternoon, which meant that if I were going to perform the ritual for Flandre, I would be unable to talk to the village people until late tomorrow or the day after given I was going to be training with Yuuka and having another fight with Tenshi.
Following the path I had been led to arrive at the room, I soon emerged in the dining room, where I saw Remilia and Flandre playing chess while munching on what looked like red velvet cupcakes.
Upon seeing me walk in, Flandre spun around her wrought iron wings, almost smacking into Remilia and knocking over a few species. It was clear that she was playing chess to indulge Remilia, given the state of the board and how her species were spread out almost randomly while her sisters were played out commonly.
Flandre grinned widely with glee in her red eyes as she sprung to her feet, "Hello, are you here to play!" She asked loudly with exuberance in her voice, causing Remilia to sigh softly and tug on Flandre's sleeve before explaining.
"Aidan will be performing a ritual that will allow you to walk in the sun and water," Remilia said, somewhat nervous, but it was clear that no matter what concerns she held, she was willing to push them aside to assist Flandre.
The other vampire froze, her strange iron and crystal wings stopping behind her as she turned to face her sister. "Really?" She asked softly and in a tone so different from the happy, childlike manner I had always heard her talking in since meeting her.
"Yes," Remilia said in reply, standing up as well, her hands twitching as she clasped them behind her back while both Flandre and her started at each other an undercurrent of tension filled the room as the Grimoire grew.
Stepping forward, I smiled and approached the table that Remilia and Flandre were standing at. "So, where would you like for me to perform the ritual?" I asked, breaking the growing tension between the two as they turned to look at me.
"I suppose the basement," Flandre said in a flat tone that had Remilia wincing as she strode off, the crystal's on her wings clinking.
Following behind her, Flandre and I left Remilia behind as we walked toward yet another part of the manor I had not seen. While I knew that the mansion's interior had been messed with, the magic layered on it was still astounding.
I couldn't spot a single spell anchoring the magic in place, which meant somebody was keeping the entire mansion twisted like a pretzel through their own skill and mental focus. While they likely had tools and other foci to ease the strain, it was still awe-inspiring.
We then arrived at a locked iron door that Flandre threw open with nary an effort despite the fact when it slammed into the wall, the entire hallway shuddered.
Following her down the stairs, it was clear to see that this part was much less traveled as dust coated the walls and only flickering dim electrical light showed the path down the hallway.
We soon arrived at another massive thick iron door that Flandre opened with only a hint more effort than the one at the entrance to the basement.
Stepping inside, I realized a depressing sight; the room was clearly a bedroom with a large bed, a dresser, dozens of small toys, and other things that made a bedroom look like a home.
However, there was a prevailing feeling that something was off, and it didn't click until Flandre hopped on the bed, and I spotted something broken made of wood under the bed.
While Flandre didn't mind living down here, there was a small part of her that resented being in the basement while her sister lived above in a lavish room.
"Well, I just need the ingredients, and we can get started," I said, ignoring the prevailing mood causing Flandre to brighten up as she brushed aside the bad thoughts.
"Alright, what do you need?" She asked, hopping off the bed and striding up to me as time slammed to a halt, and I sighed again.
It seemed that Sakuya was being sent after us, and I was proven correct as after a few minutes, the silver-haired maid stepped through the open iron door carrying the supplies for the ritual.
Setting them, she gave me a bow despite my seemingly frozen state and walked away, the clicking of her heels fading away as time restarted with a click.
Flandre frowned as she saw the items piled on the floor before shaking her head and stepping back, "Anything else?" She asked, looking over the four ingredients almost skeptically.
"Nope," I replied cheerfully as I started setting up the ritual. It was almost identical to the one I performed on Remilia, with a few minor alterations to fit the smaller room I was performing in.
Soon enough, I had the seven circles made from blood and dust, with Flandre standing in the middle. Stepping outside the room, I took a deep breath, not happy about the pain I would be feeling soon, but the soothing warmth of the faith in my chest caused me to relax slightly.
Holding out my hands, I started to chant under the gaze of Flandre, who seemed to have shaken herself out of the funk she had fallen into for a few minutes and was twitching, causing her wings to move around a create a slight tinkling sound.
My chant continued as mana was pulled from me with a torrent that had me almost stumbling, and I once again felt the gaze of the dragon that lay inside the barrier, seemingly a long ingrained response that persisted after death.
The candle's flame grew as air blew inside the room, causing Flandre's skirt to flap as she twitched and kept a close eye on the splashing water. However, as I pulled deeper and started to touch my magic circuits, I felt a fleck of faith travel up my hand and into the ritual.
That tiny spark exploded, and a torrent of mana surged into the ritual, forcing me to franticly grasp hold of the fragile formation and wrangle the newly created mana into the pattern I was following.
Continuing on, I didn't have to pull on my magic critics, and the ritual concluded shortly after with me much less tired and only forced to lean on my parasol somewhat.
Much like her sister before her, Flandre looked over her hands, walked over to the wall, and gently laid a hand on it. However, unlike her sister, her eyes traveled across the room and down her body as if searching for something.
Then I took a few steps back as a familiar feeling overtook me, and Flandre held out her hand as if something was resting in it. This felt like the brief moment before I died when Flandre and the heat that Destruction's mere presence brought.
That had unfortunate implications on her powers, but considering that the mansion was standing and people weren't dying regularly meant, she had control of her power, and I could push off any questions.
Walking slowly out of the room, she spoke to me calmly in a manner unlike the childish exuberance or deadly flat tone I had seen her talk in before, "Do you mind coming outside with me?"
Nodding, I followed after her seeing the tiny twitches in her body as she forced herself to walk and not run through the halls to get outside faster.
The Grimoire grew as we finally left the manor and into the midafternoon sun. Flandre hesitated on the doorstep before taking a cautious step into the light.
She flinched as the light covered her body; however, there was no burning or even a slight tinge of her skin. A smile crept across her face. She spun around, and the sun played across her face without burning her.
Laughter bubbled from her lips as she pushed off the ground and hung in the air, a simple, joyful smile on her face, all anger and negative thoughts forgotten in the face of warm sunlight on her face.
Hering faint footsteps, I turned to my side and saw Remilia standing beside me, a nostalgic smile on her face as she watched Flandre dance in the sun.
"Thank you," she rasped, clearly doing her best to keep her course, "If you ever need anything, and I mean absolutely anything, let me know, and I'll see what I can do," She promised, not accepting pushback. So I gave her a nod and watched as she joined her sister, floating up to her in the afternoon light.
Feeling a faint burn behind my eyes, I smiled at the happy sight and started walking toward the gate. I could retrieve my payment the next time I stopped by; there was no need to interpret the sister's enjoyment to discuss payment.
I was, however, stopped by a time, slowing to a halt with a clicking sound. Standing still, I saw Sakuya approaching with an envelope in her hand; time resumed as she handed the thick envelope to me, and checking inside, I saw a large sum of money that I tucked away.
"I know the mistress may have already said this, but thank you, sincerely," Sakuya said, and for a moment, I was not looking at the perfect time to stop maid Sakuya, but the person who had been with Remilia for years, possibly Centrius and deeply appreciated what I, had done.
Giving her a wry smile, I replied, "No problem, just doing my job," then I nodded politely and to my leave, saying goodbye to the gate guard as well, which for once was wide awake and peering through the steel gate at the two small vampires frolicking in the sunlight.
Striding off, I made my way past the lake covered with mist and towards the Human Village. Distorting space to speed up my journey, I arrived quickly and landed in front of the gate, startling both of the guards.
Their hands tightened on the guns as they both looked at me casually; I mentally frowned but pushed it off as startlingly as I walked forward.
"Good afternoon," I said, giving them a polite nod, "I am looking to purchase some property in the village. Who should I talk to arrange that," I continued, causing both of them to exchange looks before the one on the right spoke.
"For youkai business, you would want to speak with Miss Kamishirasawa; you can find her near the school on the outskirts of town to the right. But no funny business, understood?"
"Understood," I said before walking past them and towards where he said the school was. Despite the village's large size, I was able to weave in between people, and with my keen sight, I spotted what I presumed to be the school based on the students leaving. Continuing on my way towards it, I ignored the preachers talking about the sun, the merchants attempting to hawk their wares, and, in one case, a young teen who attempted to shoulder-check me but backed down when I gave him a look.
Raising an eyebrow, I spotted three figures I hadn't anticipated residing inside the village. Rumia, Wriggle, and Crino were floating out of the school under the watchful gaze of a woman wearing a bizarre hat; it was a blue box decorated with a red ribbon at the top along with silver lace on the side. The end result looked somewhat like a small house.
Waiting a few minutes for the kids and youkai to disperse, noting that while Kamishirasawa treated both mostly equally, the parents seemed eager to retrieve the children away from the youkai but more as a precaution and less true fear.
Walking towards the woman, my eyes took in her form and made a note of the strange silver hair highlighted with blue; I didn't know if that was merely a factor of this world given that Sakuya had silver hair but given that the other humans had normal hair suggested that this teacher might have non-human ancestry.
"Hello, Miss Kamishirasawa," I said, stumbling over the name and butchering the end of it, causing the woman to giggle slightly, her eyes dancing with mirth. It was clear that other people had this issue before.
"Please call me Keine. I understand my last name can be cumbersome," She said in a polite voice that belayed a hint of something more and caused me to take a closer look at her.
Looking slightly closer, I could tell that my dominance of the moon held heavy power over her, which only reinforced my idea that she had non-human ancestors, but given most people's cation towards youkai, I decided against bringing it up.
"What can I do to help you," She said not noticing or uncaring of my closer look at her nature, "I am looking to purchase property in the village for a project of mine," I said, resting the tip of my parasol on the ground and letting my hands relax on its handle.
"What project is that?" She asked, slightly more wary now but still willing to hear me out. "I am looking to build a shrine; you see, I'm a new god here," I replied, resulting in Keine nodding in understanding before frowning slightly.
"I'm afraid you can't buy property inside the village as we have an agreement to not sell to youkai, gods, or other nonhumans to prevent any from gaining an edge over others." I frowned as while that made sense; it was still irritating.
However, before I could reply, she continued. "However, you would be allowed to build your shrine on the outskirts so long as it is not intrusive and you follow the laws, no robbery, no coercing worshippers, and so on."
"Thank you," I said, nodding in agreement, "Where should I mark, and how much will it cost," I continued as the Grimoire grew, causing me to wince slightly as dozens of new scraps of knowledge and tricks entered my head along with a neat trick to prevent your average joe from breaking into my home.
"Let me retrieve one of the council members, and we can find a suitable location," She said, smiling gently as she gestured for me to follow her into the depths of the Human Village, and with a similar smile, I did.
Powers Gained
Mind's Eye
Your affinity to Secret Histories manifests through your sight, allowing you to see in low light conditions and through supernatural illusions.
Specialties (Nomad's Desert Life)
Surviving in the Desert Lands is a struggle. You gain an ability to conserve water, ride camels and a plethora of common desert survival knowledge with a small boost to being able to go longer without water in hot climates. But the best thing is... you've learned how to create a cultural Taboo like what was once around the Desert Pyramid. Small children and their dares would be far too scared to ever cross your word, the common grave robber or thief would hesitate to tread within the boundaries of land the taboo is set on, but hardened souls with a purpose won't falter so easily. In other words it will keep the laymen off a property you own, but not the settings villains, big bads, or cronies sent by a villain to burn your house down. The rest? They'll think wherever you've set this is cursed. Surely keeping hapless common folk away from a set plot of land of yours where they could hurt themselves (or annoy you) is worth something right?
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- Location
- California
Sounds like he gained some Insight from the Cultist Jump and the Mind's Eye perk.
Great chapter! It was heartwarming to see Remilia and Flandre's joy at the ritual's success.
Here are a few small edits, by the way:
Here are a few small edits, by the way:
Yup, he's going to be noticing a few different things around Gensokyo now
Thanks for the edits, and after hundreds of years something as simple as enjoying the sun and taking a dive in a river will be euphoric not to mention being able to interact with the less nocturnal folk
The issue with that is even ignoring what other people or people he may meet in the future think about him trapping the human souls is that he would be forced to keep an intense focus on the souls at all times to prevent them from messing him up as seen in the. In addition, even if he found willing people they would likely have terms and want to have a voice in how he acted. That's not even counting the fact that over hundreds of years, there is a good chance the souls start to dislike him which brings him back to the first issue.
TLDR: For the most part it is not worth the risk for long-term use, however, if collected for a single purpose the souls agree on then it would be a somewhat viable option.
I think the souls rebelling part is only a issue for when you had six souls ( Omega flowey getting destroyed ) but Asriel didn't seem to have any problem with rebellions, and freeing the lost souls in the Asriel boss fight didn't seem to do anything.
- Location
- washington
I like how morality never came up as an issue
The main issue is that he has no clue how they would work given the fact the only time 7 human souls are talked about is in folklore and never explicitly shown. The only time something similar happens is with 6 humans which makes Omega Flowey and 6 humans + countless Monster Souls made Asriel both of which are beaten, so he is not going to bet on being able to suppress 7 human souls unless the situation is dire
Despite how much he would claim to be a better person if push came to shove he would murder people to gain more power or to protect people close to him(i.e the time he sacrificed an innocent homeless man to make Komainu a pseudo-phylactery, which was made irrelevant a few weeks later.)I like how morality never came up as an issue
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Chapter 63
Following behind the women, there was a marked difference in attitude. Whereas before, most people gave me side eyes or walked out of my path. Now, they simply watched me curiously as if Keine's presence ensured I was not dangerous.
We soon entered what could only be called the noble area, it wasn't genuinely noble, but the houses were bigger, and the people dressed in more ornate clothes while the common folk walking the edges of the village were nowhere to be found.
A few minutes later, we arrived at a large hall that Keine walked into and entered the first door on the right. Sitting on a chair and behind a desk was an older man with greying hair and a cane leaning against the desk.
Candlelight eliminated the room, and he was scribbling away with a small pen that was clearly quite old and had been modified as he carefully unscrewed it and, with slightly trembling hands, removed the small plastic cylinder.
He then reached under the desk and retrieved a vial of ink, and upon setting it down, he finally saw Keine and me standing at the entrance.
"Looking as wonderful as ever, Miss Kamishirasawa," He said flawlessly, beaming as he grabbed his cane and stood up, leaving a primitive wooden leg in place of his right one; he then bowed to Keine before his gaze moved over to me.
"He is looking to build a shrine for a new local god," She said politely, causing the man's eyes to light up as he hobbled further back into the room and started searching throw the shelves of scrolls.
We waited for a good few minutes before the man shuffled back over with a scroll that he spread across the desk, revealing a map of the village and the surrounding area.
While a majority of the map was old, I could see where the village had expanded, and new locations had been marked or built as it was much fresher and hadn't faded as much.
Running a finger over the map, he hummed before looking back up at Keine, "Well, with the Moryia pushing back the construction of their shrine again, there would be very little competition, and if you teamed up with that, bird cook, you might be able to manage something,"
He then barked out a laugh and continued, "That is if you can prevent her from having a munch on her worshippers," His laughter then faded as Kenie gave him a stern look and then looked away uncomputable, "Just a little joke Miss," He mumbled while averting his gaze before turning back to face me.
"I surmise that Miss Kamishirasawa has given you the rundown on the do's and don't?" He asked to which I nodded, and he hummed while walking back and replacing the scroll.
Turning to leave, Keine gave a shallow bow and spoke, "Have a good day Kaito," Then, as he whirled around, stunned, and I could see the confusion on his face, she swept out of the room. After giving a polite wave, I followed behind her.
"Well then, I do believe you have many options given that, as of now, nobody has set up outside of town. So long as you do not build on somebody else's property, you should be fine," Keine said, smiling softly as I nodded, "Of course, and have a good day Miss Keine," I replied.
However, before I could turn to leave, the woman pinned me in place with a look, "I do want you to understand something, I care naught if you are a god, but the people of this village are under my protection," She said. I could see faintly wafting off over her was a magenta energy that looked like History.
"I understand," I said, ignoring the itching in my eyes as the energy faded away and Keine untensed. "Thank you, have a good day," She said before turning and heading back towards the school, the people around her making way for the schoolteacher.
Rubbing my eyes with my free hand, I walked out of the village from the same entrance I had entered, politely nodding and saying goodbye to the guards as I left, still receiving a somewhat frosty response.
Walking down the path, I left behind the few farms that were on this side of the village and soon arrived at an empty area within sight of the village walls.
Swinging my parasol in front of me, I stepped through the opened hole and arrived on the front porch of my home. I glanced at the sunflower field and saw my simulacrum still working over the coffin.
Walking towards the forge, I started grabbing the sacks of Dust, noticing that the amount had almost doubled since I had last checked. I wondered momentarily how they hid this infrastructure back in my home world but shrugged it off and started moving the Dust into the Gap.
I then emerged back where I had just been and ignored the angry looks of the guards. They seemed to dislike everything not of the village, which was irritating.
Pulling the Dust out of the Gap, I arranged the sacks around me and focused on the tiny granular motes of incredible potential. The Dust was pulled out of the bags and filled the air as I transformed it into wood, stone, and other building supplies.
I then went a step further and used more Dust to link the pieces together like they were Legos. It took almost two hours, and the sun was setting, but I had finished a small chapel.
It was distinct from the other shrines I had seen, and I hoped that would entice some to arrive and pray, but I now needed to stock it with a pastor.
Feeling the Grimoire grow as I walked inside and past the pews, I stood behind the lectern. I could recruit one of my simulacrum, but that felt awkward, and I doubted that they would be able to play that role for long.
The other option I was discarding was grabbing one of my pre-Grimoire minions to preach; the problem with that one was that they were idiotic and only suitable for basic tasks.
I was about to conjure a new being to serve as my pastor when an idea struck me. While not suitable for a pastor, I did have a Yuuka sealed inside my parasol, and I could theoretically let her essence seep out and into a new youkai, I created.
"Yuuka, I have a question for you," I said, focusing on my parasol. I waited for a few moments before I heard incredibly faint footsteps and, turning around, saw the damaged and mortally wounded ephemeral form of Yuuka around the corner.
"Yes?" She asked, tilting her head as I started to expand upon my question, "I have the ability to create youkai and was wondering if you could sort of seep out of the parasol and into an empty body?"
In response to my question, Yuuka hummed as she thought over my proposal before nodding, "I surmise you are not just doing this out of the good of your heart, correct?" She asked, causing me to chuckle and rub the back of my neck before replying.
"Well, I do need a person to run my shrine and didn't want to leap to creating a youkai for this, so I thought to ask you to take the role,"
Her eyes widened slightly before she laughed and nodded, "That's acceptable; being a shrine maiden will be an interesting new experience,"
I beamed as she agreed and then, setting the parasol down, got to work. Holding my hands out, I focused on the power I had gotten recently and pulled out mana and the small threads of belief.
It took time and a decent chunk of my mana, but I had to create what appeared to be Yuuka; I then looked at the unmoving body in the chest and saw the shimmering form of Yuuka fade away as the parasol metaphysical lightened.
The form I had created wasn't a specific type of youkai as I didn't know what type Yuuka was, so I went with a generic one with a massive tank of mana, the ability to shapeshift so that people would not know there were two Yuuka's running about and what I dubbed a sort of shrine maiden preset.
She would draw sustenance from my faith and, as a part of her, would hold partial power over my domains, which meant she could use mana to do what I did with faith, even if it was much more expensive.
Blinking, the prone form of Yuuka slowly stood up and took a deep breath before releasing her lack of clothing. Before I could do anything, the fabric started to weave around her body, and in just a few seconds, the same clothing that the other Yuuka had worn was wrapped around her body.
I then took a step back as a parasol identical to the one the other Yuuka and I held grew in her hands, starting from the wood spirling up until a large pink petal sprouted out and was then folded and laid on her shoulder.
Looking at my shocked face, she spoke as her form and clothes shrunk and, in a few moments, was clad in an outfit much like Reimu's except dark green and yellow, and the parasol was a staff with decorative flowers and vines growing up it.
"I do apologies, Father; I forgot that I will be serving as a shrine maiden and not a youkai," She said, giving an apologetic bow as I was flabbergasted and sputtered as I attempted to formulate a response.
"You did make this body, Father. I don't know why you're so confused?" She asked, tilting her head in confusion as my bafflement only grew.
A few seconds later, moments before I could bring to word the thoughts I had managed to formulate, Yuuka had laughed in her new high-pitched voice.
"That was enjoyable; I do think being a shrine maiden will be a good time," Yuuka said, "Away from the fear that I had, this opens many new avenues, anyway call me Mykro Fyto, Father," She continued. I groaned as she referred to me as a father once again.
Holding up my hands, I spoke before she could say something else to knock me off balance, "Why, just why?" I asked before continuing, "You are so different from the other Yuuka and even yourself from just a few minutes ago. What happened?"
The newly named Mykro hummed as she leaned on her staff, "It's quite simple, no matter how good her seals are, not even Yukari can protect against dimensional travel without her in person. That is how I managed to seep out to talk to you; however, it was also slowly destroying my soul."
I balanced at the matter-of-fact way she mentioned how her soul had been getting mulched. "So when I entered this body, I joined with the nascent soul that was made to be a shrine maiden which has made me a composite and therefore different,"
I rubbed between my eyes as I thought over what she had said, even as the Grimoire pulsed and grew; I then felt a strange weightless feeling in my head before shaking it off.
"You don't want me to fix it, do you?" I asked. Even though I was skeptical about being able to separate two souls, I didn't want to force such a massive change, even back an accident.
"Nah, it's fine, Father," She said before she stopped leaning on her staff, "This place needs a bit of sprucing up; I trust you can handle any other business you have?" Mykro then asked, clearly attempting to shoo me away so she could get to decorating the chapel.
"Fine, fine," I said, holding my hands up in surrender, "I trust that you won't make this place a jungle or otherwise inhospitable?" I then asked to which I received a nod causing me to swing my parasol over my shoulder and walk into the courtyard in the back.
While in a normal church, this would be a graveyard, here, I would be assembling a relay for my faith collector. Heading outside, I retrieved the Dust that was left over and brought it out back.
I had used around half of my overall Dust to build this chapel which reaffirmed my belief that creating fortifications and buildings from just Dust was wasteful and not something I would be planning to be regularly doing.
However, creating the components was a different matter, so I got to work on transmuting the materials needed for the pylon. When I finished, I got to work on assembling the pylon itself; it had four legs that were sunk into the ground, and the legs then coiled around a metal pole that served to gather the faith the legs had collected.
Then the faith would be collected around the tip at the top and expanded out for the collector to grab, extending its range and increasing production due to having to refine the faith only a small bit.
Dusting off my hands as I witnessed the almost twelve feet tall silvery machine start to rumble to life, the next step would be capping the top with a ring similar to the one I used to extend the range of my soul gem.
Swinging my parasol, I shifted the Path to extend out of the fence that boxed in in this back area; besides serving as a location to collect faith, it would also be an excellent spot to anchor my home in case anybody wanted to hire me or otherwise want to talk.
Striding down the Path, I soon emerged at my home, headed over to the forge, and retrieved the remaining sacks of Dust I had placed into the Gap.
Setting them down, I got to work on forging a new ring, except this time, it would be much larger and able to fit around a pole that was around a foot across.
It took time, as while my forge was big enough and I had the knowledge creating and enchanting that much metal was time-consuming, even with my skills and power.
I stepped away from the forge and wiped my brow as it approached eight. I wasn't sweating, and there was not a single drop of exhaustion in me, but it only felt right.
Lifting the massive ring, I slung it over my shoulder like a hola-hoop and almost fell over as I was unbalanced. I then removed it from my shoulder and dropped it in the Gap for me to grab later.
Entering the backyard, I heard Mykro talking in that somewhat young and excited tone she seemed to have adopted. Carefully opening the back door, I entered the chapel and saw a younger man, most likely in his mid-twenties, engaged in a conversation with Mykro.
"So this is the shrine of a new god?" He asked as Mykro nodded along, "Yup, the god of Magic, Fantasy, Dreams, and the Moon!" She said, thumping her staff on the ground, causing a few new flowers to grow around the windows.
"Hello, I see you've got to work, Mykro," I said politely as I emerged from the door frame and showed myself to the young man, and Mykro, who, by the slight smirk she was hiding, already knew I was there.
"O-oh great goddess, I didn-" The man started to sputter as he attempted to bow but stopped when I made a cutting motion with my hand. I was also forced to cut off a snort as he mistook me for a girl, which was something I knew was a chance when I picked this form but was nonetheless amusing.
"There's no need for over the formalities; just call me Aidan. What can I do for you?" I asked as he slowly stood up from his bow, still very nervous and caught off guard by my relaxed speech and lack of apparent godly power.
"I-I just saw this new building and wanted to see what it was," He said, aborting a bow once again as he attempted to act more relaxed, but all it did was reveal his nervousness.
"Is there anything you wish you could achieve, some dream you have given up on?" I asked as I walked closer to him, and he stiffened up and took a half step back.
"I-I wish I could fly," He attempted in a low whisper as if ashamed that he did have a wish. I then grinned and reached grabbed one of the tiny motes of faith floating around inside of me and rested a hand on his shoulder.
I then pushed faith into his body, focusing on the dream and fantasy of being able to fly through the skies with ease and how I felt the first time I peered down on Earth from high above.
He shuddered as he took a step back, and his eyes glanced up at me, paradoxically, both more scared and somewhat comforted. "Try taking a step into the air," I said softly, and after a moment of looking at me, he took a step forward, and after attempting to take another without lowering his original foot, he noticed something.
He was floating in the air, and as he blinked rapidly, he ascended to the ceiling of the chapel and broke out into massive smiles. Swooping down, he caught me in a massive hug as tears slipped down his face and the Grimoire grew.
"I can fly!" He shouted before realizing what he had done and backing off while bowing profusely and stammering out apologies for overstepping his bounds.
Mykro was smirking openly as I raised a hand to stop his apologies, "This blessing will last for only a week, and even that can vary on how much you fly; I only request that you see if others would like to come and worship at my chapel."
"Of course, goddess," He said, bowing once again before flying out of the room with another whoop of excitement. I could feel the outpouring of faith which left me with a fuzzy feeling in my head and a grin on my face.
"Feels good, doesn't it, Father," Mykro said, leaning on her staff with a grin, "I remember the few times I got a taste of faith felt like the best meal you could ever have,"
I nodded absentmindedly as I slowly regained focus. Mentally eyeing the pool of faith floating around in me, I realized that even with just that one person's faith, I already had a decent amount that would only grow with regular prayer.
"I do have some fights tomorrow, so I'm going to get some sleep," I said to Mykro, receiving a nod in response before I turned and left through the back door and the Path beyond it.
Flying through the sunflower field, I arrived at the faith collector and quickly inspected it to ensure it received the faith from the pylon correctly.
Checking the pool, I saw a small layer of glowing white liquid. Retrieving a vial, I picked up a tiny amount of faith and, in one swing, downed it.
As it flowed over my mouth, I could taste the brownies I used to have every so often after school. The faith then settled into my own pool as I took a deep breath and, for a brief moment, felt like stars had exploded behind my eyes as familiar dreamlike laughter drifted over my ears.
Setting the vial down with faintly trembling hands, I remembered how Mykro had said that the few times she had faith, it tasted amazing, which makes sense with what I just had.
Walking inside my house, I noticed just beside my room was another nondescript door. Opening it, I saw a library filled with hundreds of books.
Stepping inside, I saw on a lectern in front of the entrance a small book, and flipping it open revealed a list of where certain types of books.
Directly in front of me was Formal craft and rituals, while the further you got out, the more complex and dangerous the books and knowledge contained got.
It seemed like a new power, and as I summoned the Grimoire to my side and flicked through the pages, my guess was confirmed. The power was called Eternal Library and translated everything about magic I knew into this place; it would keep growing as I learned more which made this a wonderful way to keep track of things I might forget or what to teach to others.
Leaving the library and closing the door, I arrived in my bedroom, seeing that Komainu was curled up already. Smiling softly, I settled in next to her and soon fell asleep.
Blinking slowly, I looked around the small restaurant I had worked at; standing behind the counter was Dromery, clad in the black pants and red shirt of the uniform, staring at me with a smug smile on her face.
"Really?" I asked as her smile grew, and in a moment of eye-burning horror, her form shifted and fell in on itself as I could see dozens of people, locations, and other things slowly dissolving while screaming into the pink stuff that made up her and the dream realm. By the time I had shaken my head and refocused my eyes, she was clad in the dress, Santa hat, and holding the thick tome I normally saw her in.
"Anyway, you're now a fully-fledged god of Dreams, so I'd like you to hold up your end of the bargain," She said, reaching under the counter where the table markers were and retrieving a small lump of flesh that pulsed slowly with the faint sound of a beating heart.
Generally accepting it, I looked at it cautiously, "What should I do with this?" I asked as I looked back up at Doremy, who started to explain, "All you have to do is plant it and water it with faith, give it a few seconds, and you'll have a beautiful dream tree,"
I nodded at the explanation, "Alright, make sense; you mind if I ask how it works?" I asked, given that I was a god of dreams now. I was curious about how this worked, given that I thought Doremy was entirely a dream entity and, therefore, unable to travel to the physical world.
"That is a chunk of what remains of my physical form," She then broke out into laughter as I fumbled with the lump of flesh and almost dropped it. "I was a mortal once, you know, for a given definition of mortal," She continued with an enigmatic smile.
"Anyway, that is the last chunk that I've been preventing from becoming dream stuff; I had a dream that one day I could walk among mortals once again. The point is once it's given faith or belief, it will grow into a youkai of its own, which will be connected to me and allow me to exist in the physical realm so long as that tree lives."
I turned that explanation in my head over as I nodded along. It made sense and would be a bridge to the dream world where Doremy lived. I knew that belief made a youkai, so one that was made from a piece of Doremy would obviously be connected to her and, from what she said, allow a portion of her dream self into the physical world.
"Anything else?" I asked as the Grimoire pulsed, and Dormey cocked her head as if listening to something before she shook her head no. "Nah, just get that tree grown soon; feeling real grass will be a treat; hell, I'll toss in a bonus. If you get that tree grown, I can give you the rundown on how I became what I am today and even how you could ascend past your current godhood." She said, causing my mind to start jumping ahead at the idea of what could be past godhood.
"I'll make sure to get right on that," I said before giving a polite bow; however, unlike every other time where the world faded away as I woke up. This time I felt a tugging pain as I stumbled toward the Ruler of the Dreamworld. Doremy's chest twisted as the fabric and flesh beneath it opened up again to reveal a maw with gnashing teeth that was pulling me in toward the scene of millions of people, places, and nascent gods being digested.
I shot up in my bed, breathing heavily as Komainu turned over in her sleep, grumbling while she attempted to grasp my arm. I didn't know why my heart was racing. It presumably had something to do with my dreams, but the last I remembered was to tell Doremy I would get started on growing the trees and then waking up.
Carefully extracting myself, I resummoned my robes and headed out of my house, only to be greeted by one of my simulacra. "Hello, boss; we got that clone spell done. Would you like us to put it any specific?" He asked, his arms clasped loosely behind his back
"Just tuck it around, back away from anybody who could stumble upon it. Just don't set up traps or defenses. I don't want Reimu stumbling out and being caught in a Glyph of Warding,"
Giving a sloppy salute, the simulacrum was off, shouting to the others as they lifted up the coffin and started moving it. Held in my hand was the faintly beating lump of flesh that Doremy had given me as I traveled toward the side of my house opposite of the forge.
Taking a few moments, I dug a hole in the ground and buried the pulsating lump of flesh. Placing a hand over the hole, I reached into the small puddle of faith inside my chest and siphoned it out of my hand and into the soil.
The mystical energy was soaked up by the flesh and, in moments, had broken free of the surface, quickly growing. In a few seconds, it had reached my height as the faintly pink wood interwove to create the trunk of a tree.
The trunk grew taller and taller until it towered above me. The branches spread out, forced to bend by the curve of this pocket dimension until they covered a large portion of my home. I stopped momentarily and peered at the faintly pink thick limbs of the tree until the branches started to split as trees did, each smaller stem pinker until the tiny tips resembled the dream stuff that made up Doremy's realm.
Soon after, I saw the branches start to emit a pink fluff, much like cotton candy wrapped around the branches and casting a pink glow on my home. Soon after, I felt a similar feeling of comfort and home as I had on the moon, which resulted in my taking a deep breath and focusing in front of me.
A small stick was then formed out of the free-floating dream stuff shed by the strange leaves that made up the dream tree; it was then that I realized what this tree was doing.
It acted as a bridge to the dreamworld like Doremy said; however, it did that by making the surroundings a smaller world halfway into the said world. This meant my new home was similar to Yuuka's and offered me a considerable power boost because this counted as me being in my domain, like being on the moon, enhanced my power.
I then felt a trembling in the air as the tree shook; casting my gaze up, I saw the branches parting to reveal a figure landing with the rising sun casting a glow around them.
My eyes itched as the slightly off form of Doremy made itself clear. She floated down with her book clutched in one hand and her tail flicking around behind her as she looked around with a giant smile on her face.
"After ten thousand years, I'm finally free!" She shouted, her arms held up in the air, her smile unchanged as she floated a few inches above the sunflowers.
I groaned and put my face in my hands; I assumed she got that from seeing dreams from the outside world, but given what she had said, it was likely longer than ten thousand years which meant she had said that just to mess with me.
The dream warped around me as Doremy vanished and appeared over my shoulder and whispered in my ear, "Seriously, thank you, I may have been the ruler of the dreamworld, but it was still only a dream," She then floated back and landed in front of the trunk of the massive tree that had sprouted.
Running a hand over it, she looked at it with what seemed like fondness and nostalgia for a moment before she turned back to face me. "Do you have anything to eat?" She asked,
"I can whip something up for you; how do you feel about pancakes?" I asked as I started to lead her inside and towards my kitchen. "That would be great; I could share how to ascend further as we eat," She said, which caused me to hurry into the kitchen and retrieve the supplies required.
The Grimoire grew as I finished up a stack of pancakes and gave her a third while setting a third aside for Komainu. Sitting down, I gave her the Dust-made syrup along with the proper utensils before retrieving the same for me and starting to eat, ready for what she would tell me after we finished.
Powers Gained
Eternal Libary
Over the course of your life, you will learn so much of magic that it will become utterly impossible for a mortal to fully comprehend the extent of your mind, but with this warehouse attachment you might be able to help others stick their toes into the sea of your knowledge. This massive library can be access by a door in your warehouse that will automatically add books written from your magical knowledge. You could find absolutely every single magical technique you know somewhere in this library, and the library will keep expanding in size to accommodate your swelling intellect. The library will keep expanding and the books will come into existence with no upper limit, meaning that over the course of your adventures this could become the most complete source of magic knowledge in all of the multiverse.
We soon entered what could only be called the noble area, it wasn't genuinely noble, but the houses were bigger, and the people dressed in more ornate clothes while the common folk walking the edges of the village were nowhere to be found.
A few minutes later, we arrived at a large hall that Keine walked into and entered the first door on the right. Sitting on a chair and behind a desk was an older man with greying hair and a cane leaning against the desk.
Candlelight eliminated the room, and he was scribbling away with a small pen that was clearly quite old and had been modified as he carefully unscrewed it and, with slightly trembling hands, removed the small plastic cylinder.
He then reached under the desk and retrieved a vial of ink, and upon setting it down, he finally saw Keine and me standing at the entrance.
"Looking as wonderful as ever, Miss Kamishirasawa," He said flawlessly, beaming as he grabbed his cane and stood up, leaving a primitive wooden leg in place of his right one; he then bowed to Keine before his gaze moved over to me.
"He is looking to build a shrine for a new local god," She said politely, causing the man's eyes to light up as he hobbled further back into the room and started searching throw the shelves of scrolls.
We waited for a good few minutes before the man shuffled back over with a scroll that he spread across the desk, revealing a map of the village and the surrounding area.
While a majority of the map was old, I could see where the village had expanded, and new locations had been marked or built as it was much fresher and hadn't faded as much.
Running a finger over the map, he hummed before looking back up at Keine, "Well, with the Moryia pushing back the construction of their shrine again, there would be very little competition, and if you teamed up with that, bird cook, you might be able to manage something,"
He then barked out a laugh and continued, "That is if you can prevent her from having a munch on her worshippers," His laughter then faded as Kenie gave him a stern look and then looked away uncomputable, "Just a little joke Miss," He mumbled while averting his gaze before turning back to face me.
"I surmise that Miss Kamishirasawa has given you the rundown on the do's and don't?" He asked to which I nodded, and he hummed while walking back and replacing the scroll.
Turning to leave, Keine gave a shallow bow and spoke, "Have a good day Kaito," Then, as he whirled around, stunned, and I could see the confusion on his face, she swept out of the room. After giving a polite wave, I followed behind her.
"Well then, I do believe you have many options given that, as of now, nobody has set up outside of town. So long as you do not build on somebody else's property, you should be fine," Keine said, smiling softly as I nodded, "Of course, and have a good day Miss Keine," I replied.
However, before I could turn to leave, the woman pinned me in place with a look, "I do want you to understand something, I care naught if you are a god, but the people of this village are under my protection," She said. I could see faintly wafting off over her was a magenta energy that looked like History.
"I understand," I said, ignoring the itching in my eyes as the energy faded away and Keine untensed. "Thank you, have a good day," She said before turning and heading back towards the school, the people around her making way for the schoolteacher.
Rubbing my eyes with my free hand, I walked out of the village from the same entrance I had entered, politely nodding and saying goodbye to the guards as I left, still receiving a somewhat frosty response.
Walking down the path, I left behind the few farms that were on this side of the village and soon arrived at an empty area within sight of the village walls.
Swinging my parasol in front of me, I stepped through the opened hole and arrived on the front porch of my home. I glanced at the sunflower field and saw my simulacrum still working over the coffin.
Walking towards the forge, I started grabbing the sacks of Dust, noticing that the amount had almost doubled since I had last checked. I wondered momentarily how they hid this infrastructure back in my home world but shrugged it off and started moving the Dust into the Gap.
I then emerged back where I had just been and ignored the angry looks of the guards. They seemed to dislike everything not of the village, which was irritating.
Pulling the Dust out of the Gap, I arranged the sacks around me and focused on the tiny granular motes of incredible potential. The Dust was pulled out of the bags and filled the air as I transformed it into wood, stone, and other building supplies.
I then went a step further and used more Dust to link the pieces together like they were Legos. It took almost two hours, and the sun was setting, but I had finished a small chapel.
It was distinct from the other shrines I had seen, and I hoped that would entice some to arrive and pray, but I now needed to stock it with a pastor.
Feeling the Grimoire grow as I walked inside and past the pews, I stood behind the lectern. I could recruit one of my simulacrum, but that felt awkward, and I doubted that they would be able to play that role for long.
The other option I was discarding was grabbing one of my pre-Grimoire minions to preach; the problem with that one was that they were idiotic and only suitable for basic tasks.
I was about to conjure a new being to serve as my pastor when an idea struck me. While not suitable for a pastor, I did have a Yuuka sealed inside my parasol, and I could theoretically let her essence seep out and into a new youkai, I created.
"Yuuka, I have a question for you," I said, focusing on my parasol. I waited for a few moments before I heard incredibly faint footsteps and, turning around, saw the damaged and mortally wounded ephemeral form of Yuuka around the corner.
"Yes?" She asked, tilting her head as I started to expand upon my question, "I have the ability to create youkai and was wondering if you could sort of seep out of the parasol and into an empty body?"
In response to my question, Yuuka hummed as she thought over my proposal before nodding, "I surmise you are not just doing this out of the good of your heart, correct?" She asked, causing me to chuckle and rub the back of my neck before replying.
"Well, I do need a person to run my shrine and didn't want to leap to creating a youkai for this, so I thought to ask you to take the role,"
Her eyes widened slightly before she laughed and nodded, "That's acceptable; being a shrine maiden will be an interesting new experience,"
I beamed as she agreed and then, setting the parasol down, got to work. Holding my hands out, I focused on the power I had gotten recently and pulled out mana and the small threads of belief.
It took time and a decent chunk of my mana, but I had to create what appeared to be Yuuka; I then looked at the unmoving body in the chest and saw the shimmering form of Yuuka fade away as the parasol metaphysical lightened.
The form I had created wasn't a specific type of youkai as I didn't know what type Yuuka was, so I went with a generic one with a massive tank of mana, the ability to shapeshift so that people would not know there were two Yuuka's running about and what I dubbed a sort of shrine maiden preset.
She would draw sustenance from my faith and, as a part of her, would hold partial power over my domains, which meant she could use mana to do what I did with faith, even if it was much more expensive.
Blinking, the prone form of Yuuka slowly stood up and took a deep breath before releasing her lack of clothing. Before I could do anything, the fabric started to weave around her body, and in just a few seconds, the same clothing that the other Yuuka had worn was wrapped around her body.
I then took a step back as a parasol identical to the one the other Yuuka and I held grew in her hands, starting from the wood spirling up until a large pink petal sprouted out and was then folded and laid on her shoulder.
Looking at my shocked face, she spoke as her form and clothes shrunk and, in a few moments, was clad in an outfit much like Reimu's except dark green and yellow, and the parasol was a staff with decorative flowers and vines growing up it.
"I do apologies, Father; I forgot that I will be serving as a shrine maiden and not a youkai," She said, giving an apologetic bow as I was flabbergasted and sputtered as I attempted to formulate a response.
"You did make this body, Father. I don't know why you're so confused?" She asked, tilting her head in confusion as my bafflement only grew.
A few seconds later, moments before I could bring to word the thoughts I had managed to formulate, Yuuka had laughed in her new high-pitched voice.
"That was enjoyable; I do think being a shrine maiden will be a good time," Yuuka said, "Away from the fear that I had, this opens many new avenues, anyway call me Mykro Fyto, Father," She continued. I groaned as she referred to me as a father once again.
Holding up my hands, I spoke before she could say something else to knock me off balance, "Why, just why?" I asked before continuing, "You are so different from the other Yuuka and even yourself from just a few minutes ago. What happened?"
The newly named Mykro hummed as she leaned on her staff, "It's quite simple, no matter how good her seals are, not even Yukari can protect against dimensional travel without her in person. That is how I managed to seep out to talk to you; however, it was also slowly destroying my soul."
I balanced at the matter-of-fact way she mentioned how her soul had been getting mulched. "So when I entered this body, I joined with the nascent soul that was made to be a shrine maiden which has made me a composite and therefore different,"
I rubbed between my eyes as I thought over what she had said, even as the Grimoire pulsed and grew; I then felt a strange weightless feeling in my head before shaking it off.
"You don't want me to fix it, do you?" I asked. Even though I was skeptical about being able to separate two souls, I didn't want to force such a massive change, even back an accident.
"Nah, it's fine, Father," She said before she stopped leaning on her staff, "This place needs a bit of sprucing up; I trust you can handle any other business you have?" Mykro then asked, clearly attempting to shoo me away so she could get to decorating the chapel.
"Fine, fine," I said, holding my hands up in surrender, "I trust that you won't make this place a jungle or otherwise inhospitable?" I then asked to which I received a nod causing me to swing my parasol over my shoulder and walk into the courtyard in the back.
While in a normal church, this would be a graveyard, here, I would be assembling a relay for my faith collector. Heading outside, I retrieved the Dust that was left over and brought it out back.
I had used around half of my overall Dust to build this chapel which reaffirmed my belief that creating fortifications and buildings from just Dust was wasteful and not something I would be planning to be regularly doing.
However, creating the components was a different matter, so I got to work on transmuting the materials needed for the pylon. When I finished, I got to work on assembling the pylon itself; it had four legs that were sunk into the ground, and the legs then coiled around a metal pole that served to gather the faith the legs had collected.
Then the faith would be collected around the tip at the top and expanded out for the collector to grab, extending its range and increasing production due to having to refine the faith only a small bit.
Dusting off my hands as I witnessed the almost twelve feet tall silvery machine start to rumble to life, the next step would be capping the top with a ring similar to the one I used to extend the range of my soul gem.
Swinging my parasol, I shifted the Path to extend out of the fence that boxed in in this back area; besides serving as a location to collect faith, it would also be an excellent spot to anchor my home in case anybody wanted to hire me or otherwise want to talk.
Striding down the Path, I soon emerged at my home, headed over to the forge, and retrieved the remaining sacks of Dust I had placed into the Gap.
Setting them down, I got to work on forging a new ring, except this time, it would be much larger and able to fit around a pole that was around a foot across.
It took time, as while my forge was big enough and I had the knowledge creating and enchanting that much metal was time-consuming, even with my skills and power.
I stepped away from the forge and wiped my brow as it approached eight. I wasn't sweating, and there was not a single drop of exhaustion in me, but it only felt right.
Lifting the massive ring, I slung it over my shoulder like a hola-hoop and almost fell over as I was unbalanced. I then removed it from my shoulder and dropped it in the Gap for me to grab later.
Entering the backyard, I heard Mykro talking in that somewhat young and excited tone she seemed to have adopted. Carefully opening the back door, I entered the chapel and saw a younger man, most likely in his mid-twenties, engaged in a conversation with Mykro.
"So this is the shrine of a new god?" He asked as Mykro nodded along, "Yup, the god of Magic, Fantasy, Dreams, and the Moon!" She said, thumping her staff on the ground, causing a few new flowers to grow around the windows.
"Hello, I see you've got to work, Mykro," I said politely as I emerged from the door frame and showed myself to the young man, and Mykro, who, by the slight smirk she was hiding, already knew I was there.
"O-oh great goddess, I didn-" The man started to sputter as he attempted to bow but stopped when I made a cutting motion with my hand. I was also forced to cut off a snort as he mistook me for a girl, which was something I knew was a chance when I picked this form but was nonetheless amusing.
"There's no need for over the formalities; just call me Aidan. What can I do for you?" I asked as he slowly stood up from his bow, still very nervous and caught off guard by my relaxed speech and lack of apparent godly power.
"I-I just saw this new building and wanted to see what it was," He said, aborting a bow once again as he attempted to act more relaxed, but all it did was reveal his nervousness.
"Is there anything you wish you could achieve, some dream you have given up on?" I asked as I walked closer to him, and he stiffened up and took a half step back.
"I-I wish I could fly," He attempted in a low whisper as if ashamed that he did have a wish. I then grinned and reached grabbed one of the tiny motes of faith floating around inside of me and rested a hand on his shoulder.
I then pushed faith into his body, focusing on the dream and fantasy of being able to fly through the skies with ease and how I felt the first time I peered down on Earth from high above.
He shuddered as he took a step back, and his eyes glanced up at me, paradoxically, both more scared and somewhat comforted. "Try taking a step into the air," I said softly, and after a moment of looking at me, he took a step forward, and after attempting to take another without lowering his original foot, he noticed something.
He was floating in the air, and as he blinked rapidly, he ascended to the ceiling of the chapel and broke out into massive smiles. Swooping down, he caught me in a massive hug as tears slipped down his face and the Grimoire grew.
"I can fly!" He shouted before realizing what he had done and backing off while bowing profusely and stammering out apologies for overstepping his bounds.
Mykro was smirking openly as I raised a hand to stop his apologies, "This blessing will last for only a week, and even that can vary on how much you fly; I only request that you see if others would like to come and worship at my chapel."
"Of course, goddess," He said, bowing once again before flying out of the room with another whoop of excitement. I could feel the outpouring of faith which left me with a fuzzy feeling in my head and a grin on my face.
"Feels good, doesn't it, Father," Mykro said, leaning on her staff with a grin, "I remember the few times I got a taste of faith felt like the best meal you could ever have,"
I nodded absentmindedly as I slowly regained focus. Mentally eyeing the pool of faith floating around in me, I realized that even with just that one person's faith, I already had a decent amount that would only grow with regular prayer.
"I do have some fights tomorrow, so I'm going to get some sleep," I said to Mykro, receiving a nod in response before I turned and left through the back door and the Path beyond it.
Flying through the sunflower field, I arrived at the faith collector and quickly inspected it to ensure it received the faith from the pylon correctly.
Checking the pool, I saw a small layer of glowing white liquid. Retrieving a vial, I picked up a tiny amount of faith and, in one swing, downed it.
As it flowed over my mouth, I could taste the brownies I used to have every so often after school. The faith then settled into my own pool as I took a deep breath and, for a brief moment, felt like stars had exploded behind my eyes as familiar dreamlike laughter drifted over my ears.
Setting the vial down with faintly trembling hands, I remembered how Mykro had said that the few times she had faith, it tasted amazing, which makes sense with what I just had.
Walking inside my house, I noticed just beside my room was another nondescript door. Opening it, I saw a library filled with hundreds of books.
Stepping inside, I saw on a lectern in front of the entrance a small book, and flipping it open revealed a list of where certain types of books.
Directly in front of me was Formal craft and rituals, while the further you got out, the more complex and dangerous the books and knowledge contained got.
It seemed like a new power, and as I summoned the Grimoire to my side and flicked through the pages, my guess was confirmed. The power was called Eternal Library and translated everything about magic I knew into this place; it would keep growing as I learned more which made this a wonderful way to keep track of things I might forget or what to teach to others.
Leaving the library and closing the door, I arrived in my bedroom, seeing that Komainu was curled up already. Smiling softly, I settled in next to her and soon fell asleep.
Blinking slowly, I looked around the small restaurant I had worked at; standing behind the counter was Dromery, clad in the black pants and red shirt of the uniform, staring at me with a smug smile on her face.
"Really?" I asked as her smile grew, and in a moment of eye-burning horror, her form shifted and fell in on itself as I could see dozens of people, locations, and other things slowly dissolving while screaming into the pink stuff that made up her and the dream realm. By the time I had shaken my head and refocused my eyes, she was clad in the dress, Santa hat, and holding the thick tome I normally saw her in.
"Anyway, you're now a fully-fledged god of Dreams, so I'd like you to hold up your end of the bargain," She said, reaching under the counter where the table markers were and retrieving a small lump of flesh that pulsed slowly with the faint sound of a beating heart.
Generally accepting it, I looked at it cautiously, "What should I do with this?" I asked as I looked back up at Doremy, who started to explain, "All you have to do is plant it and water it with faith, give it a few seconds, and you'll have a beautiful dream tree,"
I nodded at the explanation, "Alright, make sense; you mind if I ask how it works?" I asked, given that I was a god of dreams now. I was curious about how this worked, given that I thought Doremy was entirely a dream entity and, therefore, unable to travel to the physical world.
"That is a chunk of what remains of my physical form," She then broke out into laughter as I fumbled with the lump of flesh and almost dropped it. "I was a mortal once, you know, for a given definition of mortal," She continued with an enigmatic smile.
"Anyway, that is the last chunk that I've been preventing from becoming dream stuff; I had a dream that one day I could walk among mortals once again. The point is once it's given faith or belief, it will grow into a youkai of its own, which will be connected to me and allow me to exist in the physical realm so long as that tree lives."
I turned that explanation in my head over as I nodded along. It made sense and would be a bridge to the dream world where Doremy lived. I knew that belief made a youkai, so one that was made from a piece of Doremy would obviously be connected to her and, from what she said, allow a portion of her dream self into the physical world.
"Anything else?" I asked as the Grimoire pulsed, and Dormey cocked her head as if listening to something before she shook her head no. "Nah, just get that tree grown soon; feeling real grass will be a treat; hell, I'll toss in a bonus. If you get that tree grown, I can give you the rundown on how I became what I am today and even how you could ascend past your current godhood." She said, causing my mind to start jumping ahead at the idea of what could be past godhood.
"I'll make sure to get right on that," I said before giving a polite bow; however, unlike every other time where the world faded away as I woke up. This time I felt a tugging pain as I stumbled toward the Ruler of the Dreamworld. Doremy's chest twisted as the fabric and flesh beneath it opened up again to reveal a maw with gnashing teeth that was pulling me in toward the scene of millions of people, places, and nascent gods being digested.
I shot up in my bed, breathing heavily as Komainu turned over in her sleep, grumbling while she attempted to grasp my arm. I didn't know why my heart was racing. It presumably had something to do with my dreams, but the last I remembered was to tell Doremy I would get started on growing the trees and then waking up.
Carefully extracting myself, I resummoned my robes and headed out of my house, only to be greeted by one of my simulacra. "Hello, boss; we got that clone spell done. Would you like us to put it any specific?" He asked, his arms clasped loosely behind his back
"Just tuck it around, back away from anybody who could stumble upon it. Just don't set up traps or defenses. I don't want Reimu stumbling out and being caught in a Glyph of Warding,"
Giving a sloppy salute, the simulacrum was off, shouting to the others as they lifted up the coffin and started moving it. Held in my hand was the faintly beating lump of flesh that Doremy had given me as I traveled toward the side of my house opposite of the forge.
Taking a few moments, I dug a hole in the ground and buried the pulsating lump of flesh. Placing a hand over the hole, I reached into the small puddle of faith inside my chest and siphoned it out of my hand and into the soil.
The mystical energy was soaked up by the flesh and, in moments, had broken free of the surface, quickly growing. In a few seconds, it had reached my height as the faintly pink wood interwove to create the trunk of a tree.
The trunk grew taller and taller until it towered above me. The branches spread out, forced to bend by the curve of this pocket dimension until they covered a large portion of my home. I stopped momentarily and peered at the faintly pink thick limbs of the tree until the branches started to split as trees did, each smaller stem pinker until the tiny tips resembled the dream stuff that made up Doremy's realm.
Soon after, I saw the branches start to emit a pink fluff, much like cotton candy wrapped around the branches and casting a pink glow on my home. Soon after, I felt a similar feeling of comfort and home as I had on the moon, which resulted in my taking a deep breath and focusing in front of me.
A small stick was then formed out of the free-floating dream stuff shed by the strange leaves that made up the dream tree; it was then that I realized what this tree was doing.
It acted as a bridge to the dreamworld like Doremy said; however, it did that by making the surroundings a smaller world halfway into the said world. This meant my new home was similar to Yuuka's and offered me a considerable power boost because this counted as me being in my domain, like being on the moon, enhanced my power.
I then felt a trembling in the air as the tree shook; casting my gaze up, I saw the branches parting to reveal a figure landing with the rising sun casting a glow around them.
My eyes itched as the slightly off form of Doremy made itself clear. She floated down with her book clutched in one hand and her tail flicking around behind her as she looked around with a giant smile on her face.
"After ten thousand years, I'm finally free!" She shouted, her arms held up in the air, her smile unchanged as she floated a few inches above the sunflowers.
I groaned and put my face in my hands; I assumed she got that from seeing dreams from the outside world, but given what she had said, it was likely longer than ten thousand years which meant she had said that just to mess with me.
The dream warped around me as Doremy vanished and appeared over my shoulder and whispered in my ear, "Seriously, thank you, I may have been the ruler of the dreamworld, but it was still only a dream," She then floated back and landed in front of the trunk of the massive tree that had sprouted.
Running a hand over it, she looked at it with what seemed like fondness and nostalgia for a moment before she turned back to face me. "Do you have anything to eat?" She asked,
"I can whip something up for you; how do you feel about pancakes?" I asked as I started to lead her inside and towards my kitchen. "That would be great; I could share how to ascend further as we eat," She said, which caused me to hurry into the kitchen and retrieve the supplies required.
The Grimoire grew as I finished up a stack of pancakes and gave her a third while setting a third aside for Komainu. Sitting down, I gave her the Dust-made syrup along with the proper utensils before retrieving the same for me and starting to eat, ready for what she would tell me after we finished.
Powers Gained
Eternal Libary
Over the course of your life, you will learn so much of magic that it will become utterly impossible for a mortal to fully comprehend the extent of your mind, but with this warehouse attachment you might be able to help others stick their toes into the sea of your knowledge. This massive library can be access by a door in your warehouse that will automatically add books written from your magical knowledge. You could find absolutely every single magical technique you know somewhere in this library, and the library will keep expanding in size to accommodate your swelling intellect. The library will keep expanding and the books will come into existence with no upper limit, meaning that over the course of your adventures this could become the most complete source of magic knowledge in all of the multiverse.
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Another incident resolver perhaps? Our new Miko that is. Since she considers Aidan to be her Father, does she consider her other-self "Mother" then? Wonder how'd everyone would react to that knowledge though.
In terms of incident resolution, she's like Yuuka in that regard; wanders around and provokes people into picking a fight. So if she resolves an incident it'll likely be by accident. As for the other Yuuka, she does refer to her as Mother mainly to mess with people, if they do meet she is more likely to call her Sister as if you look at it sideways they are kinda sisters.
Chapter 64
We ate for another few minutes before Doremy leaned back and pushed her plate toward the center of the table. "That was great; I forgot how thick material food tastes," She said, slumping into her chair with her eyes closed.
"Alright," She said with a humph of effort as she shot back up and leaned her arms on the table as I set my knife and fork on the plate and, tapping my fingers on the table, cast Prestidigitation to clean my mouth, removing the few spots of food that I might have missed or otherwise got on my face.
"I suppose I'll start with a question, what is Dreaming?" She asked while leaning forward, her smile still in place as I tried to formulate a response.
"Dreaming is either what most mammals do when sleeping or something you want," I replied, somewhat hesitant because, despite my knowledge and understanding of dreams, I was still a complete amateur compared to Doremy.
"Close, it can be described as a far-off want, and everything, no matter how big or small, has dreams; I came into existence much like gods from the dreams of the first multicellular beings."
I furrowed my eyebrows as I thought over what she said. It was tenacity possible, but I didn't think that something as simple as cellular beings could even have dreams.
"How, to my understanding, such simple things should not be able to dream?" I asked to which her smug grin only grew, "It's quite simple; everything has a wish. For those beings, it was often simple things such as more food or to grow, but uncountable beings all having dreams can create a single sapient being no matter how stupid they are."
"That explains how you were born, and I suppose that there wasn't enough belief to create another, so you were the lone goddess?" I asked, and as she nodded, I continued my questioning.
"Alright, but if you were a goddess, how did you become whatever you are now?" What had already been said made sense even if I didn't really understand the underlying mechanics of it, but ascending from goddess to whatever Doremy is was a step I didn't understand.
"Well, for a long time, I was the only being, and so I decided to explore the nascent dream world. However, one day, after delving deep into the slowly filling dreamworld, I couldn't wake up." She said, her grin turning sad for a few moments as she seemed to regret that mistake.
"After that, I wandered the dreamworld for what must have been eons learning more about it than anybody else before arriving at its center," She counted her eyes looking over my shoulder, still caught in the past.
"It was there I saw my own dreams of returning to my body and learned that I was already past that. I had mantled dreams and ascended past anything that had ever existed or would exist for thousands of years."
"What is mantling something?" I inquired, tilting my head as Doremy turned her gaze back to me and explained. "Mantleing is my word for embodying something so closely that you can't be separated. However, only one person can mantle something at a time, which is why we don't have a Sun Ascendant."
"Correct me if I'm wrong," I said, holding up my hands as I started to verbally parse through what she had told me. "Upon being so powerful or indistinguishable from something, you will become an Ascendant, which would make you the Dream Ascendant,"
She nodded while applauding me, managing to figure out her explanation, "I'm a bit of a special case as my mantle allows me to lock away my older memories and interact with gods and other temporary beings. No matter how long you live, it's only the blink of an eye against infinity." She finished before standing up and floating a few inches above the ground.
"I'm going to explore Gensyoko, maybe poke Sumireko in the material world. Thank you for the food," Doremy said before turning and floating through the door and presumably towards the Path and Gensyoko proper.
Drumming on the table, I thought over the revelation Doremy had given me. There was a step past godhood, which was both terrible and fascinating; it would allow me to be truly immortal but would warp me over time and prevent me from dying so long as my aspect existed.
Which given the fact I would be shooting for fantasy and True Immortals existed meant I would always exist. That would be a heavy burden to bear no matter who held it, and it made sense my Doremy sealed her memories away so she could interact with other beings that had not existed since the Earth first developed life.
Shaking my head, I stood up and started collecting the plates. Using Prestidigitation to remove any detritus, I placed the plates back where they came from before checking my mental clock.
It was nearing three am, which was early for the sun to be rising, but I shrugged it off as summer approached, given that I had felt the temperature increase in the past few days.
This was much too early to go and have Yuuka teach me, which meant I needed to find something to while the time away. Striding to my new library, I decided to spend a few hours parsing through the pages as while I was given the knowledge, it would still take time to properly understand it, and I could do some edits while I read.
I felt the Grimoire pulse and grow as I pulled a few of the books on Formalcraft off the shelves and towards the small arrangement of the tables in the library. Sitting down, I retrieved my small blue book and started to copy down important rituals and make edits so they could function better in a world without Gaia.
A few hours passed as I converted the Formalcraft to proper rituals that could tap less into the connected network of Gaia and into the smaller leylines and ambient magic that coursed throughout Gensokyo
I then heard the sound of somebody opening my front door, which was strange as while I didn't have any active defenses, the Path was still out of the way.
Closing and leaving both the blue book and the book on Chronomancy on the table, I walked out of my library and saw a familiar figure standing in my front room.
It was Marisa with a grin on her lips as she held her broom in her left hand and looked around the room. "Hey!" She said, waving as she spotted me leaving my library; I noticed as her eyes focused on the large room filled with books behind me.
"Hello, Marisa," I said while walking into the kitchen and gesturing for her to follow me. "Would you like a cup of tea, and do you mind telling me why you're here?" I asked while pulling out the supplies for tea from my cabinet.
"Sure, I'll take some tea," Marisa said, leaning her broom against the table as she sat down. "As for why I'm here, well, the sun came up early today, which means this is an Incident."
Humming as I set the tea down, I took a sip from my own cup and raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't explain why you are here?" I asked as she took a messy drink from her own, panting as the near-boiling tea burned her mouth.
"Just checking in on the newcomers ya know how it is; any time somebody new arrives, they always cause problems." She said, and now I could see how she was subtly tense under her dress, and her right hand was under the table.
"I didn't cause any of this. I'm just as baffled as you are. However, I do have a business to attend to, so do you mind leaving?" I asked as I stood up, and she finished off her tea, still wincing at its heat.
"Sorry, can't happen," Marisa said, standing up and retrieving her Mini-Hakkro from her apron. "Ya see, I like to think I'm a smart witch, and, strangely, ya have a strange glow around your place along with that massive tree,"
I rubbed my brow before brushing past the witch, still on guard to prevent myself from being hit in the back. She followed me outside, picking up her broom as we left my house.
As I stepped off the porch, I held up my hand and used Telekinesis to rip Marisa's broom from her grasp, and as she stumbled from the force, I opened a gap between her feet, causing her to plummet into the space between spaces.
Peering into the black depths, I focused and opened another gap that dumped her out in front of the village, causing the guards to point their guns at the gap before noticing Marisa falling out.
I closed the gaps before she could attempt to enter them and set her broom down on my porch. She could get her broom back from Myrko, but I didn't want to fight a human witch when I had training with Yuuka in a bit.
Picking the broom back up, I walked down the Path and emerged into the backyard of my chapel. I frowned as I could hear sounds of fighting happening from inside said building.
Propping Marisa's broom against the back wall, I entered to pandemonium. Mykro was flying in the air flinging magical projectiles against Reimu, who had nimbly avoided them and returned fire with thin needles that cracked stone and, as I watched, shattered one of the glass windows.
It seemed that Reimu believed that I was a part of this incident; however, she was not polite enough to enter my house and have a talk like Marisa. While the witch did want to start a fight, at least she waited until we were outside my home.
Summoning my parasol to my hand, I pointed it to a Reimu and, with a muttered word, cast Hold Person. She immediately froze and dropped like a stone toward the ground; however, before I could do anything to prevent her from hitting the ground, she seemed to fade away, leaving nothing behind.
"Reimu!" I shouted, "Let's have a talk, shall we? There is no need for a fight today!" I continued as said miko repaired with small strips of paper held in one hand with her strange weapon held in the other.
Mykro had stopped firing and floated down until she stood beside me as we looked up at the irate shrine maiden. I held both my hands up and let my parasol slide until it rested between my thumb and pointer away from Reimu and not a threat.
"Listen, let's sit down and have a chat instead of flinging around magic and breaking my chapel," I said, attempting to remain calm, but a smidge of irritation bubbled up as I saw the ruined windows and cracks that both Reimu and Mykro had left.
"All right, Father, I'll go grab chairs and tea!" Mykro shouted as she darted off the edges of her clothes flapping behind her as Reimu stared down in shock while I sighed deeply.
It seemed that Mykro was still poking at me, and now I knew that no matter what, Reimu and anybody else she talked to would think I had a daughter.
Slowly floating down, still on guard, Reimu spoke in a confused tone, "You have a daughter?" She asked as I grimaced before replying. "Yes, in the most technical sense, she is my creation but has taken to calling me Father,"
At this point, Mykro returned with three chairs, a table, and teapots, all held by vines that emerged from under her clothes. "I know that Father is going to see Mother today, which is why he is grumpy that you interrupted him,"
Reimu cast another look at me, clearly much more relaxed. I was cut off from responding as the Grimoire grew, and I could feel something being sucked out of my chest before everything went back to normal a split second later.
Coughing slightly, I glared at Mykro for suggesting I had a kid with Yuuka, as while it was somewhat correct, it was only in the most superficial manner.
"I don't particularly care. I just want you to say what you know about the incident," Reimu said; however, her tone of voice betrayed that she was curious who this mother could be but was willing to push aside her curiosity to solve the current issue plaguing Gensyoko.
"I don't know. I'm a god of the moon, not the sun; to further that, I don't have anything that could affect when the sun rises and sets. I like to think I'm powerful, but pissing off the remaining sun gods is not a good idea," I said emphatically, trying to get my point across.
Rubbing the bridge of her nose Reimu seemed annoyed that she had traveled to my chapel and got into a fight with Mykro for nothing; while looking at my 'daughter,' I could tell that she enjoyed it. Overall it was a waste of time.
Frowning, Reimu rose to her feet, still giving me a suspire look, "I'll be taking my leave, but if you try anything-" "You'll exterminate me, I know," I interrupted what seemed to be her catchphrase at this, point.
Her glare only intensified, so I raised my hands in the air, "As I said before, I came here to enjoy myself, so causing problems is the last thing I want." Seeming to be satisfied that I hadn't caused any problems, Reimu stood up and floated out of the door, leaving her tea untouched.
As the door slammed shut behind the Miko, Mykro popped up and finished off her tea with an obnoxious slurp that had me wincing. "So, Father, can I go solve the Incident?" She asked, leaning on her staff with a guileless smile on her face that didn't fool me for a second.
"Sure, just don't die. It'll be a pain to resurrect you," I said nonchalantly, causing her eyes to widen before she giggled and flew out with the chapel doors slamming shut behind her.
With a flick of my wrist, I sighed as I cast Telekansis and moved the furniture back where Mykro had presumably grown it. I then grabbed Maria's broom and set it outside my front door for her to grab whenever she showed up again.
Doing a quick check on the time once again, I saw that it was nearing six am, which was still somewhat too early to be bargaining into somebodies house and demanding lessons, so I returned to my library and chronomancy notes.
More time passed; however, this time, I was interrupted not by a witch breaking in but by the soft pitter-patter of Komainu walking into the new library.
She looked around in awe as I carefully put down my books and turned to face her. "What can I do for you," I said softly, a smile on my face as she yawned and rubbed her eyes. "I haven't been seeing you recently," She complained while pouting in a manner that immediately made my heart clench.
It was true; I had been focused on what Gensokyo had to offer and spending very little time with my adoptive sister. However, I was unable to fix that today as I was both training with Yuuka and fighting Tenshi.
"Alright," I said, standing up and walking over to Komainu, "How about tomorrow we head into the Human Village and have a nice day? I have plenty of money, so feel free to go wild." I continued even as a small part of me winced at the idea of giving somebody free rein to spend my money, but I quashed that thought.
Her eyes brightened as she jumped, and her arms enveloped my waist. I was then promptly reminded that no matter how young-looking or inoffensive she was that she was a youkai, as her strength forced me to brace myself so I did not get knocked on my back.
"Really?" She asked, her eyes wide in hope as her arms tightened around my waist while I enveloped her in a hug and replied, "Of course, I don't lie."
"Alright, I'll tell my friends I can't come over tomorrow," She said, smiling and skipping off as I returned the wave. Standing up from my kneeling position, I groaned as I habitually rolled my shoulders.
I felt none of the pain that would typically plague me after bending down, which was still an amazing feeling after months of being freed from the issues of a mortal body.
I wasn't entirely on board with the transhuman idea, but one thing I did support was the quality of life changes. Dismissing the strange thoughts, I decided to check what that strange feeling was earlier and summoned the Grimoire to my side.
Flipping through the pages, I read the new power called Elemental Seeds; it stated clearly that every week I would get twelve seeds per affinity I had which wasn't well described.
I did see under the text five small indents that, when I reached inside, held a dozen tiny seeds similar to large sunflower seeds. As the Grimoire in my hand pulsed, I retrieved the sixty seeds and set them on my kitchen table.
Passing through the book, I saw that I had twelve seeds for each of my domains and an additional twelve for my attribute. That meant I had seeds of magic, fantasy, dream, the moon, and unholiness. I had no clue how any of these would be when grown, but I couldn't wait to test them out soon.
However, I had an appointment with Yuuka, so I carefully placed the seeds in one of my cabinets and strode out of my house after slinging my parasol over my shoulder.
Following the Path, I emerged in the backyard of my chapel and continued on my way, noticing that Marisa's broom was missing. My way continued as I floated in the air, flew towards Yuuka's garden, and past that into her dream realm.
I saw the ruler of this small realm striding out of her mansion gates as the gatekeeper, Elly, bowed and closed the overgrown steel gate behind her. Yuuka looked up to face me as I landed on the ground, my identical parasol slung over my shoulder.
I hesitated momentarily as I saw strange things I hadn't seen the last time I was here. Yuuka had sunflowers growing from her head, twining around her body, and emerging from her sleeves, and under her clothes were vines that leaked a strange milky sap that tingled to my divine senses.
Elly was also strange as her eyes peered at me with empty sockets filled with naught but the pink stuff that made up the dream stuff; the rest of her body looked like a small layer of skin pulled over a poorly made puppet, small sticks poking out included.
"Good morning," I said, giving a nod to both Yuuka and Elly; I received a nod from Yuuka and a polite bow from Elly. "I see you are on time," Yuuka said, walking past me, "Follow me," she continued.
I voiced my question as we walked towards the border between the dream realm and Yuuka's garden. "I noticed something different about you and Elly today. Is that new, or did I just not notice it before,"
Turning to face me, Yuuka's smile blossomed into something unnerving to behold; between her teeth, I could see lotus spinning as the strange sap started to drip onto the ground leaving behind nary a trace as the ground absorbed it, and miniature sunflowers sprouted up.
"I see you have opened your eyes, so few bother to see the world truly anymore," Yuuka complained with a heavy sigh, "Even that shrine maiden as altered as her bloodline is looked into our world with barely open eyes."
That sounded like a fascinating topic and something that Yukari had hinted at with her passive over Reimu's blood and my speculation on how intertwined she was with Gensokyo. However, before I could ask any questions, Yuuka spoke.
"Today, if we do well enough, I will explain what you see in me and the changes that the Hakurei bloodline has gone through if you do expectantly well,"
I nodded before voicing a new question, "What training will we be doing today?" To my question, Yuuka's smile grew while the lotus behind her teeth spun faster, and she replied with one word, "Perception,"
Immediately after, I felt vines slam into my back and envelop my bones. They started to twist as I attempted to struggle free; however, I lacked the proper leverage and was released to Yuuka shaking her head.
"I see we have a lot to work on," Was all she said before I was forced to dance and dodge around increasingly harder patterns. However, no matter how skilled I was or the tricks I used, Yuuka always managed to score a blow on me from my blindspots or force me to focus on too many things before I slipped up.
"Your issue is that you still think like a mortal! Open your gaze and see; you lack eyes!" She shouted as a flurry of spines coated in a shining liquid slammed into my back, and the venom seeped into my marrow, causing my bones to erupt into flame as the Flames of Agony worked to purge the venom.
Stumbling, I raised my parasol to knock aside her thrust as I returned fire with a Caladbolg that detonated and sent me stumbling back as Yuuka emerged from the dust cloud unharmed and conjuring more attacks.
"Cast aside your ocular sight; see with your soul like a true god!" She shouted as her parasol came swinging towards me like a sledgehammer causing me to sidestep it only to be blindsided by another Yuuka, piercing my ribs and flinging me to the ground.
Gasping in pain as my ribs broke again, I grinned painfully as I returned to my feet and summoned my parasol back to my side. Yuuka was content to wait and allow me to get my feet under me.
"You no longer need eyes, observe the world around you in all of its totality," the flower youkai said as she held her parasol over her shoulder, relaxed as if she was going for a stroll.
Focussing on her words, I took a deep breath as Yuuka swung her parasol up, and I saw plants twining and shooting toward me. I felt a brief pain, and, for a few moments, I saw around me as if I had eyes lining my head.
Easily sidestepping the vines even as they split and attempted to entangle me. However, I stumbled as a single thorny vine looped around my foot and probably caused me to get buried in plants wrapping around my bones.
"You were acceptable even if it did take you several hours," Yuuka said as, with a flick of her wrist, the vines sled back into the ground as if they weren't there.
Scrambling to my feet, I coughed up a lick of flame as the Flames of Agnoy finished their work, and the Grimoire grew. Following behind her, we returned to the sitting room where we had talked and had tea before.
Sitting down, I enjoyed the excellent mint tea that was the perfect mix of warm but not too hot as Yuuka started to speak. "You are competent in terms of firepower; however, your perception leaves a lot to be desired; that is why I wish for you to focus on keeping up a small amount of awareness at all times. It will hurt, but you are freeing your mind from the shackles of mortality, so pain is expected."
I turned that statement over in my head. It made sense as I had noticed things outside my vision quite a few times, but I chalked that up to not having eyes. From what Yuuka said, it sounds like that was true, but I needed to focus on keeping that type of sight up all the time.
"I see, so you are saying I can see all around me without needing eyes?" I asked to confirm my suspicion, and when she nodded as she was taking a sip from me, I mentally marked down to attempt to keep up that extrasensory sight going forward.
"I do have a question now that you have finished holding me; that you for that, by the way," I said as we both continued to drink the tea before Yuuka rolled her wrist in a go-ahead motion.
"What are all those vines, sunflowers, and lotus I see now? You aren't acting any different, so I surmise it is something with me, but I want to know what I'm seeing," I asked while setting down my fine china cup patterned with various flowers as I leaned forward.
"What is the difference between old and young youkai?" Yuuka asked while she also set her tea down; however, unlike me, she was completely relaxed with lidded eyes as her pupils bore into me.
"Age and power?" I replied, even knowing that was a poor response, but I couldn't think of any significant difference; most likely, it would be that the younger they were, the less time they had to gather fear and faith, leading to less power, but I was unsure.
"To put it simply, biology," the flower youkai explained before continued seeing my confusion. "The older youkai, such as myself, Yukari, and Suikia, are comprised almost entirely of faith, and if faith were to dry up, we would almost certainly die. On the other hand, younger youkai, such as," At that, she trailed off and drummed her fingers on the table as if trying to come up with a suitable example before snapping her fingers and counting.
"Such as Wriggle, that young bug who comes around my garden. She lacks almost all of the buglike attributes such a youkai should have; she has no chitin, mandibles, or even a stinger. Her only trait is an antenna which can be mostly supported by biology, with any small issues being smoothed over with a tiny amount of faith."
"If she were to travel to the outside world, she would only need a family or two to believe in her, and she would be able to survive. Now it would be uncomfortable, and she would be greatly weakened while youkai such as myself would have to resort to other methods due to us requiring such a vast amount of fear. This is not even counting the shift from fear to belief that Gensokyo has been pushing in recent times,"
"Fascinating," I breathed out as my hands twitched for something to write down what Yuuka was saying. She was saying that most youkai nowadays were formed mostly from biology and could likely be affected like a human could, even if faith did make them more reslant.
This was supported by my test creation of a sunflower youkai, it was almost entirely made from faith, and only my knowledge that it existed in my field ensured it existed. At the same time, youkai, like Mystia and Wriggle, both seemed like people with a few extra bits.
"Now I do not doubt that the other elder youkai have plans; I know that Yukari has a method to sustain herself when she leaves, and when Gensoyko falls, I have the plan to ensure I do not starve," Yuuka stated as if no matter what happened she would be untouched and to be honest I kinda believed her.
Mykro had survived a nuclear war and what sounded like being hit head which was something I was not confident about surviving. In addition, she would have likely gone to heal and be just fine if her version of Yukari hadn't interfered, which only supported Yuuka's belief in her survival.
"I do believe that you have a fight with Tenshi and a Baku to talk to," Yuuka suddenly said, snapping me out of my contemplation as I looked up at her in shock.
Giggling, Yuuka stood up and explained, "She came earlier and shared a few things as a thank you for assistance and a promise to meet in the physical world for tea in the future."
"Fair enough," I said, standing up and grabbing my parasol, quickly swinging it over my shoulder as Yuuka showed me out. Giving a wave goodbye, I kicked off and left the dream world that Yuuka ruled over.
Then as the Grimoire grew, I flew towards Reimu's shrine, I didn't know precisely where Tenshi would be, but last time, that was where she was. In the worst case, I could ask around. Still, I did need to be quick as I doubted Reimu would be in a hospital mood, given the fact that the sun was high in the sky and casting an unnatural heat on the land that caused me to blink rapidly as I felt a faint burning behind my eyes even as I landed outside of her shrine.
Powers Gained
Elemental Seeds
An elemental seed is the condensed essence of an element, and they're almost exclusively produced by Druids or Mages capable of creating enchantments replicating their methods. They have various uses, such as powering enchantments or magical items, and are required in the process of giving an object an elemental ability. Druids also use them to introduce new elements into their Grove, and need them to cultivate their affinities past the 25% point. As such, each of them is fairly valuable, with the price skyrocketing once you go beyond the basic seven elements and to incredibly rare ones such as Time.
They are also pretty time intensive to make, requiring about an hour of work for each, even for people relatively skilled in their creation. But now, you won't ever have to worry about that, as you'll get a dozen Seeds for each of your affinities delivered either to your warehouse or another place you designate, every week. Their quality depends on the level of your affinities: from 5% to 25% you'll get low-grade ones, from 25% to 50% medium-grade ones, from 50% to 75% high-grade ones, and finally, from 75% up to 100% you'll get top-grade seeds.
"Alright," She said with a humph of effort as she shot back up and leaned her arms on the table as I set my knife and fork on the plate and, tapping my fingers on the table, cast Prestidigitation to clean my mouth, removing the few spots of food that I might have missed or otherwise got on my face.
"I suppose I'll start with a question, what is Dreaming?" She asked while leaning forward, her smile still in place as I tried to formulate a response.
"Dreaming is either what most mammals do when sleeping or something you want," I replied, somewhat hesitant because, despite my knowledge and understanding of dreams, I was still a complete amateur compared to Doremy.
"Close, it can be described as a far-off want, and everything, no matter how big or small, has dreams; I came into existence much like gods from the dreams of the first multicellular beings."
I furrowed my eyebrows as I thought over what she said. It was tenacity possible, but I didn't think that something as simple as cellular beings could even have dreams.
"How, to my understanding, such simple things should not be able to dream?" I asked to which her smug grin only grew, "It's quite simple; everything has a wish. For those beings, it was often simple things such as more food or to grow, but uncountable beings all having dreams can create a single sapient being no matter how stupid they are."
"That explains how you were born, and I suppose that there wasn't enough belief to create another, so you were the lone goddess?" I asked, and as she nodded, I continued my questioning.
"Alright, but if you were a goddess, how did you become whatever you are now?" What had already been said made sense even if I didn't really understand the underlying mechanics of it, but ascending from goddess to whatever Doremy is was a step I didn't understand.
"Well, for a long time, I was the only being, and so I decided to explore the nascent dream world. However, one day, after delving deep into the slowly filling dreamworld, I couldn't wake up." She said, her grin turning sad for a few moments as she seemed to regret that mistake.
"After that, I wandered the dreamworld for what must have been eons learning more about it than anybody else before arriving at its center," She counted her eyes looking over my shoulder, still caught in the past.
"It was there I saw my own dreams of returning to my body and learned that I was already past that. I had mantled dreams and ascended past anything that had ever existed or would exist for thousands of years."
"What is mantling something?" I inquired, tilting my head as Doremy turned her gaze back to me and explained. "Mantleing is my word for embodying something so closely that you can't be separated. However, only one person can mantle something at a time, which is why we don't have a Sun Ascendant."
"Correct me if I'm wrong," I said, holding up my hands as I started to verbally parse through what she had told me. "Upon being so powerful or indistinguishable from something, you will become an Ascendant, which would make you the Dream Ascendant,"
She nodded while applauding me, managing to figure out her explanation, "I'm a bit of a special case as my mantle allows me to lock away my older memories and interact with gods and other temporary beings. No matter how long you live, it's only the blink of an eye against infinity." She finished before standing up and floating a few inches above the ground.
"I'm going to explore Gensyoko, maybe poke Sumireko in the material world. Thank you for the food," Doremy said before turning and floating through the door and presumably towards the Path and Gensyoko proper.
Drumming on the table, I thought over the revelation Doremy had given me. There was a step past godhood, which was both terrible and fascinating; it would allow me to be truly immortal but would warp me over time and prevent me from dying so long as my aspect existed.
Which given the fact I would be shooting for fantasy and True Immortals existed meant I would always exist. That would be a heavy burden to bear no matter who held it, and it made sense my Doremy sealed her memories away so she could interact with other beings that had not existed since the Earth first developed life.
Shaking my head, I stood up and started collecting the plates. Using Prestidigitation to remove any detritus, I placed the plates back where they came from before checking my mental clock.
It was nearing three am, which was early for the sun to be rising, but I shrugged it off as summer approached, given that I had felt the temperature increase in the past few days.
This was much too early to go and have Yuuka teach me, which meant I needed to find something to while the time away. Striding to my new library, I decided to spend a few hours parsing through the pages as while I was given the knowledge, it would still take time to properly understand it, and I could do some edits while I read.
I felt the Grimoire pulse and grow as I pulled a few of the books on Formalcraft off the shelves and towards the small arrangement of the tables in the library. Sitting down, I retrieved my small blue book and started to copy down important rituals and make edits so they could function better in a world without Gaia.
A few hours passed as I converted the Formalcraft to proper rituals that could tap less into the connected network of Gaia and into the smaller leylines and ambient magic that coursed throughout Gensokyo
I then heard the sound of somebody opening my front door, which was strange as while I didn't have any active defenses, the Path was still out of the way.
Closing and leaving both the blue book and the book on Chronomancy on the table, I walked out of my library and saw a familiar figure standing in my front room.
It was Marisa with a grin on her lips as she held her broom in her left hand and looked around the room. "Hey!" She said, waving as she spotted me leaving my library; I noticed as her eyes focused on the large room filled with books behind me.
"Hello, Marisa," I said while walking into the kitchen and gesturing for her to follow me. "Would you like a cup of tea, and do you mind telling me why you're here?" I asked while pulling out the supplies for tea from my cabinet.
"Sure, I'll take some tea," Marisa said, leaning her broom against the table as she sat down. "As for why I'm here, well, the sun came up early today, which means this is an Incident."
Humming as I set the tea down, I took a sip from my own cup and raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't explain why you are here?" I asked as she took a messy drink from her own, panting as the near-boiling tea burned her mouth.
"Just checking in on the newcomers ya know how it is; any time somebody new arrives, they always cause problems." She said, and now I could see how she was subtly tense under her dress, and her right hand was under the table.
"I didn't cause any of this. I'm just as baffled as you are. However, I do have a business to attend to, so do you mind leaving?" I asked as I stood up, and she finished off her tea, still wincing at its heat.
"Sorry, can't happen," Marisa said, standing up and retrieving her Mini-Hakkro from her apron. "Ya see, I like to think I'm a smart witch, and, strangely, ya have a strange glow around your place along with that massive tree,"
I rubbed my brow before brushing past the witch, still on guard to prevent myself from being hit in the back. She followed me outside, picking up her broom as we left my house.
As I stepped off the porch, I held up my hand and used Telekinesis to rip Marisa's broom from her grasp, and as she stumbled from the force, I opened a gap between her feet, causing her to plummet into the space between spaces.
Peering into the black depths, I focused and opened another gap that dumped her out in front of the village, causing the guards to point their guns at the gap before noticing Marisa falling out.
I closed the gaps before she could attempt to enter them and set her broom down on my porch. She could get her broom back from Myrko, but I didn't want to fight a human witch when I had training with Yuuka in a bit.
Picking the broom back up, I walked down the Path and emerged into the backyard of my chapel. I frowned as I could hear sounds of fighting happening from inside said building.
Propping Marisa's broom against the back wall, I entered to pandemonium. Mykro was flying in the air flinging magical projectiles against Reimu, who had nimbly avoided them and returned fire with thin needles that cracked stone and, as I watched, shattered one of the glass windows.
It seemed that Reimu believed that I was a part of this incident; however, she was not polite enough to enter my house and have a talk like Marisa. While the witch did want to start a fight, at least she waited until we were outside my home.
Summoning my parasol to my hand, I pointed it to a Reimu and, with a muttered word, cast Hold Person. She immediately froze and dropped like a stone toward the ground; however, before I could do anything to prevent her from hitting the ground, she seemed to fade away, leaving nothing behind.
"Reimu!" I shouted, "Let's have a talk, shall we? There is no need for a fight today!" I continued as said miko repaired with small strips of paper held in one hand with her strange weapon held in the other.
Mykro had stopped firing and floated down until she stood beside me as we looked up at the irate shrine maiden. I held both my hands up and let my parasol slide until it rested between my thumb and pointer away from Reimu and not a threat.
"Listen, let's sit down and have a chat instead of flinging around magic and breaking my chapel," I said, attempting to remain calm, but a smidge of irritation bubbled up as I saw the ruined windows and cracks that both Reimu and Mykro had left.
"All right, Father, I'll go grab chairs and tea!" Mykro shouted as she darted off the edges of her clothes flapping behind her as Reimu stared down in shock while I sighed deeply.
It seemed that Mykro was still poking at me, and now I knew that no matter what, Reimu and anybody else she talked to would think I had a daughter.
Slowly floating down, still on guard, Reimu spoke in a confused tone, "You have a daughter?" She asked as I grimaced before replying. "Yes, in the most technical sense, she is my creation but has taken to calling me Father,"
At this point, Mykro returned with three chairs, a table, and teapots, all held by vines that emerged from under her clothes. "I know that Father is going to see Mother today, which is why he is grumpy that you interrupted him,"
Reimu cast another look at me, clearly much more relaxed. I was cut off from responding as the Grimoire grew, and I could feel something being sucked out of my chest before everything went back to normal a split second later.
Coughing slightly, I glared at Mykro for suggesting I had a kid with Yuuka, as while it was somewhat correct, it was only in the most superficial manner.
"I don't particularly care. I just want you to say what you know about the incident," Reimu said; however, her tone of voice betrayed that she was curious who this mother could be but was willing to push aside her curiosity to solve the current issue plaguing Gensyoko.
"I don't know. I'm a god of the moon, not the sun; to further that, I don't have anything that could affect when the sun rises and sets. I like to think I'm powerful, but pissing off the remaining sun gods is not a good idea," I said emphatically, trying to get my point across.
Rubbing the bridge of her nose Reimu seemed annoyed that she had traveled to my chapel and got into a fight with Mykro for nothing; while looking at my 'daughter,' I could tell that she enjoyed it. Overall it was a waste of time.
Frowning, Reimu rose to her feet, still giving me a suspire look, "I'll be taking my leave, but if you try anything-" "You'll exterminate me, I know," I interrupted what seemed to be her catchphrase at this, point.
Her glare only intensified, so I raised my hands in the air, "As I said before, I came here to enjoy myself, so causing problems is the last thing I want." Seeming to be satisfied that I hadn't caused any problems, Reimu stood up and floated out of the door, leaving her tea untouched.
As the door slammed shut behind the Miko, Mykro popped up and finished off her tea with an obnoxious slurp that had me wincing. "So, Father, can I go solve the Incident?" She asked, leaning on her staff with a guileless smile on her face that didn't fool me for a second.
"Sure, just don't die. It'll be a pain to resurrect you," I said nonchalantly, causing her eyes to widen before she giggled and flew out with the chapel doors slamming shut behind her.
With a flick of my wrist, I sighed as I cast Telekansis and moved the furniture back where Mykro had presumably grown it. I then grabbed Maria's broom and set it outside my front door for her to grab whenever she showed up again.
Doing a quick check on the time once again, I saw that it was nearing six am, which was still somewhat too early to be bargaining into somebodies house and demanding lessons, so I returned to my library and chronomancy notes.
More time passed; however, this time, I was interrupted not by a witch breaking in but by the soft pitter-patter of Komainu walking into the new library.
She looked around in awe as I carefully put down my books and turned to face her. "What can I do for you," I said softly, a smile on my face as she yawned and rubbed her eyes. "I haven't been seeing you recently," She complained while pouting in a manner that immediately made my heart clench.
It was true; I had been focused on what Gensokyo had to offer and spending very little time with my adoptive sister. However, I was unable to fix that today as I was both training with Yuuka and fighting Tenshi.
"Alright," I said, standing up and walking over to Komainu, "How about tomorrow we head into the Human Village and have a nice day? I have plenty of money, so feel free to go wild." I continued even as a small part of me winced at the idea of giving somebody free rein to spend my money, but I quashed that thought.
Her eyes brightened as she jumped, and her arms enveloped my waist. I was then promptly reminded that no matter how young-looking or inoffensive she was that she was a youkai, as her strength forced me to brace myself so I did not get knocked on my back.
"Really?" She asked, her eyes wide in hope as her arms tightened around my waist while I enveloped her in a hug and replied, "Of course, I don't lie."
"Alright, I'll tell my friends I can't come over tomorrow," She said, smiling and skipping off as I returned the wave. Standing up from my kneeling position, I groaned as I habitually rolled my shoulders.
I felt none of the pain that would typically plague me after bending down, which was still an amazing feeling after months of being freed from the issues of a mortal body.
I wasn't entirely on board with the transhuman idea, but one thing I did support was the quality of life changes. Dismissing the strange thoughts, I decided to check what that strange feeling was earlier and summoned the Grimoire to my side.
Flipping through the pages, I read the new power called Elemental Seeds; it stated clearly that every week I would get twelve seeds per affinity I had which wasn't well described.
I did see under the text five small indents that, when I reached inside, held a dozen tiny seeds similar to large sunflower seeds. As the Grimoire in my hand pulsed, I retrieved the sixty seeds and set them on my kitchen table.
Passing through the book, I saw that I had twelve seeds for each of my domains and an additional twelve for my attribute. That meant I had seeds of magic, fantasy, dream, the moon, and unholiness. I had no clue how any of these would be when grown, but I couldn't wait to test them out soon.
However, I had an appointment with Yuuka, so I carefully placed the seeds in one of my cabinets and strode out of my house after slinging my parasol over my shoulder.
Following the Path, I emerged in the backyard of my chapel and continued on my way, noticing that Marisa's broom was missing. My way continued as I floated in the air, flew towards Yuuka's garden, and past that into her dream realm.
I saw the ruler of this small realm striding out of her mansion gates as the gatekeeper, Elly, bowed and closed the overgrown steel gate behind her. Yuuka looked up to face me as I landed on the ground, my identical parasol slung over my shoulder.
I hesitated momentarily as I saw strange things I hadn't seen the last time I was here. Yuuka had sunflowers growing from her head, twining around her body, and emerging from her sleeves, and under her clothes were vines that leaked a strange milky sap that tingled to my divine senses.
Elly was also strange as her eyes peered at me with empty sockets filled with naught but the pink stuff that made up the dream stuff; the rest of her body looked like a small layer of skin pulled over a poorly made puppet, small sticks poking out included.
"Good morning," I said, giving a nod to both Yuuka and Elly; I received a nod from Yuuka and a polite bow from Elly. "I see you are on time," Yuuka said, walking past me, "Follow me," she continued.
I voiced my question as we walked towards the border between the dream realm and Yuuka's garden. "I noticed something different about you and Elly today. Is that new, or did I just not notice it before,"
Turning to face me, Yuuka's smile blossomed into something unnerving to behold; between her teeth, I could see lotus spinning as the strange sap started to drip onto the ground leaving behind nary a trace as the ground absorbed it, and miniature sunflowers sprouted up.
"I see you have opened your eyes, so few bother to see the world truly anymore," Yuuka complained with a heavy sigh, "Even that shrine maiden as altered as her bloodline is looked into our world with barely open eyes."
That sounded like a fascinating topic and something that Yukari had hinted at with her passive over Reimu's blood and my speculation on how intertwined she was with Gensokyo. However, before I could ask any questions, Yuuka spoke.
"Today, if we do well enough, I will explain what you see in me and the changes that the Hakurei bloodline has gone through if you do expectantly well,"
I nodded before voicing a new question, "What training will we be doing today?" To my question, Yuuka's smile grew while the lotus behind her teeth spun faster, and she replied with one word, "Perception,"
Immediately after, I felt vines slam into my back and envelop my bones. They started to twist as I attempted to struggle free; however, I lacked the proper leverage and was released to Yuuka shaking her head.
"I see we have a lot to work on," Was all she said before I was forced to dance and dodge around increasingly harder patterns. However, no matter how skilled I was or the tricks I used, Yuuka always managed to score a blow on me from my blindspots or force me to focus on too many things before I slipped up.
"Your issue is that you still think like a mortal! Open your gaze and see; you lack eyes!" She shouted as a flurry of spines coated in a shining liquid slammed into my back, and the venom seeped into my marrow, causing my bones to erupt into flame as the Flames of Agony worked to purge the venom.
Stumbling, I raised my parasol to knock aside her thrust as I returned fire with a Caladbolg that detonated and sent me stumbling back as Yuuka emerged from the dust cloud unharmed and conjuring more attacks.
"Cast aside your ocular sight; see with your soul like a true god!" She shouted as her parasol came swinging towards me like a sledgehammer causing me to sidestep it only to be blindsided by another Yuuka, piercing my ribs and flinging me to the ground.
Gasping in pain as my ribs broke again, I grinned painfully as I returned to my feet and summoned my parasol back to my side. Yuuka was content to wait and allow me to get my feet under me.
"You no longer need eyes, observe the world around you in all of its totality," the flower youkai said as she held her parasol over her shoulder, relaxed as if she was going for a stroll.
Focussing on her words, I took a deep breath as Yuuka swung her parasol up, and I saw plants twining and shooting toward me. I felt a brief pain, and, for a few moments, I saw around me as if I had eyes lining my head.
Easily sidestepping the vines even as they split and attempted to entangle me. However, I stumbled as a single thorny vine looped around my foot and probably caused me to get buried in plants wrapping around my bones.
"You were acceptable even if it did take you several hours," Yuuka said as, with a flick of her wrist, the vines sled back into the ground as if they weren't there.
Scrambling to my feet, I coughed up a lick of flame as the Flames of Agnoy finished their work, and the Grimoire grew. Following behind her, we returned to the sitting room where we had talked and had tea before.
Sitting down, I enjoyed the excellent mint tea that was the perfect mix of warm but not too hot as Yuuka started to speak. "You are competent in terms of firepower; however, your perception leaves a lot to be desired; that is why I wish for you to focus on keeping up a small amount of awareness at all times. It will hurt, but you are freeing your mind from the shackles of mortality, so pain is expected."
I turned that statement over in my head. It made sense as I had noticed things outside my vision quite a few times, but I chalked that up to not having eyes. From what Yuuka said, it sounds like that was true, but I needed to focus on keeping that type of sight up all the time.
"I see, so you are saying I can see all around me without needing eyes?" I asked to confirm my suspicion, and when she nodded as she was taking a sip from me, I mentally marked down to attempt to keep up that extrasensory sight going forward.
"I do have a question now that you have finished holding me; that you for that, by the way," I said as we both continued to drink the tea before Yuuka rolled her wrist in a go-ahead motion.
"What are all those vines, sunflowers, and lotus I see now? You aren't acting any different, so I surmise it is something with me, but I want to know what I'm seeing," I asked while setting down my fine china cup patterned with various flowers as I leaned forward.
"What is the difference between old and young youkai?" Yuuka asked while she also set her tea down; however, unlike me, she was completely relaxed with lidded eyes as her pupils bore into me.
"Age and power?" I replied, even knowing that was a poor response, but I couldn't think of any significant difference; most likely, it would be that the younger they were, the less time they had to gather fear and faith, leading to less power, but I was unsure.
"To put it simply, biology," the flower youkai explained before continued seeing my confusion. "The older youkai, such as myself, Yukari, and Suikia, are comprised almost entirely of faith, and if faith were to dry up, we would almost certainly die. On the other hand, younger youkai, such as," At that, she trailed off and drummed her fingers on the table as if trying to come up with a suitable example before snapping her fingers and counting.
"Such as Wriggle, that young bug who comes around my garden. She lacks almost all of the buglike attributes such a youkai should have; she has no chitin, mandibles, or even a stinger. Her only trait is an antenna which can be mostly supported by biology, with any small issues being smoothed over with a tiny amount of faith."
"If she were to travel to the outside world, she would only need a family or two to believe in her, and she would be able to survive. Now it would be uncomfortable, and she would be greatly weakened while youkai such as myself would have to resort to other methods due to us requiring such a vast amount of fear. This is not even counting the shift from fear to belief that Gensokyo has been pushing in recent times,"
"Fascinating," I breathed out as my hands twitched for something to write down what Yuuka was saying. She was saying that most youkai nowadays were formed mostly from biology and could likely be affected like a human could, even if faith did make them more reslant.
This was supported by my test creation of a sunflower youkai, it was almost entirely made from faith, and only my knowledge that it existed in my field ensured it existed. At the same time, youkai, like Mystia and Wriggle, both seemed like people with a few extra bits.
"Now I do not doubt that the other elder youkai have plans; I know that Yukari has a method to sustain herself when she leaves, and when Gensoyko falls, I have the plan to ensure I do not starve," Yuuka stated as if no matter what happened she would be untouched and to be honest I kinda believed her.
Mykro had survived a nuclear war and what sounded like being hit head which was something I was not confident about surviving. In addition, she would have likely gone to heal and be just fine if her version of Yukari hadn't interfered, which only supported Yuuka's belief in her survival.
"I do believe that you have a fight with Tenshi and a Baku to talk to," Yuuka suddenly said, snapping me out of my contemplation as I looked up at her in shock.
Giggling, Yuuka stood up and explained, "She came earlier and shared a few things as a thank you for assistance and a promise to meet in the physical world for tea in the future."
"Fair enough," I said, standing up and grabbing my parasol, quickly swinging it over my shoulder as Yuuka showed me out. Giving a wave goodbye, I kicked off and left the dream world that Yuuka ruled over.
Then as the Grimoire grew, I flew towards Reimu's shrine, I didn't know precisely where Tenshi would be, but last time, that was where she was. In the worst case, I could ask around. Still, I did need to be quick as I doubted Reimu would be in a hospital mood, given the fact that the sun was high in the sky and casting an unnatural heat on the land that caused me to blink rapidly as I felt a faint burning behind my eyes even as I landed outside of her shrine.
Powers Gained
Elemental Seeds
An elemental seed is the condensed essence of an element, and they're almost exclusively produced by Druids or Mages capable of creating enchantments replicating their methods. They have various uses, such as powering enchantments or magical items, and are required in the process of giving an object an elemental ability. Druids also use them to introduce new elements into their Grove, and need them to cultivate their affinities past the 25% point. As such, each of them is fairly valuable, with the price skyrocketing once you go beyond the basic seven elements and to incredibly rare ones such as Time.
They are also pretty time intensive to make, requiring about an hour of work for each, even for people relatively skilled in their creation. But now, you won't ever have to worry about that, as you'll get a dozen Seeds for each of your affinities delivered either to your warehouse or another place you designate, every week. Their quality depends on the level of your affinities: from 5% to 25% you'll get low-grade ones, from 25% to 50% medium-grade ones, from 50% to 75% high-grade ones, and finally, from 75% up to 100% you'll get top-grade seeds.
Seems like with his ridiculous arsenal of magic and other random bs, Armsmaster and Ms. Militia should have been trivial to beat. Hell the sleep spell on its own seems like enough.
Why isn't he using his new perk to learn their spells?
Why does he keep wasting mana on gate of babylon when he never hits anyone with it, and when he does it doesn't do any damage?
- Pronouns
- He
Is there a list of the jumps/settings you got the powers from? It'd be easier for me to understand what he's capable of.
Just check out the celestial forge google doc
Chapter 65
Walking past the entrance of the shrine and into the courtyard, I waited for a moment to see if anybody would come to talk to me; after a few moments, I shrugged and went into the shrine proper.
Peeking around, I saw a distinct lack of Reimu or anybody, which likely meant they were out doing something. Humming under my breath, I thought about how exactly I would find Tenshi; I didn't have her hair or really anything useful that could be used to lock on Scry, which meant finding her the old-fashioned way.
However, I was thankfully saved by Reimu stumbling out from the depths of the shrine I had not poked around in out of respect for her privacy. "Hello?" she asked while rubbing her eyes, clearly just having woken up despite it being mid-morning.
"Greetings," I said with a polite nod, "Do you know where Tenshi is? I am looking for that rematch I promised," I ask her, to which she shakes her head somewhat grumpily, "Do I look like I know where that celestial is?" she asks, raising an eyebrow before yawning, "She'll either be in Heaven or flying around picking fights, shes consistent like that," Reimu tells me before gesturing me away in half-hearted shooing motion.
I merely give her another polite nod before hopping up into the air and heading out. Trying to find Tenshi in Gensoyko would be like finding a needle in a haystack, impossible unless I had a magnet.
In this case, I didn't have a magnet so much as an Atlas; opening a Path back towards my home, I drifted down the grassy area before entering the sunflower field and then my house.
Grabbing the Atlas from where I had placed it in my room, I headed back outside and sat in my rocking chair before cracking the book open. Muttering under my breath, I guided my finger along its pages. At the same time, I referred by my blossoming godly senses as my finger soon settled nearbye the human village that the Atlas showed.
Of course, the Atlas was not perfectly accurate as it tracked dreams, and they only had a loose relation to space, but it was good enough for a start.
Snapping the thick book closed, I stood up and, with a flick of my wrist, sent it through a Gap and back inside my house. I then stepped off the porch and flew off toward the human village.
As I approached it, I altered my course to pass by it, carefully watched by the guards, who relaxed somewhat when they saw that I was not intent on entering the village.
I rolled my eyes with a huff when I saw that the Atlas had been pointing me toward my new shrine; from what little I knew of her, Tenshi was interested in new things, so of course, a shrine popping up in a few minutes would interest her.
Landing in front of the shrine, I entered the unsurprising sight of Tenshi lounging in one of the pews, her booted feet kicked up on the one in front of her with her strange dress splayed out around her.
As she heard me enter, her red eyes flicked over to me, and a smile blossomed on her face. "I was wondering when you would get here!" she shouted before hopping to her feet, "Well, let's get this fight started," she stated, her smile shifting from a somewhat smug smirk from being proven correct to a more bloodthirsty grin of a fighter ready for an upcoming battle.
"You want to start now?" I asked, to which she merely nodded in reply, "Of course, we got interrupted last time, and after we fight, we can do all the tea and talking stuff you folk enjoy so much," she said, tapping her fingers on her forearms making it clear that she was ready to start now.
"Fair enough," I said with a grin of my own, "After you." I continued gesturing her outside, which she did. When we were out, she clicked her fingers, conjuring that flaming blade she had used before.
We both took a moment to assess each other as we floated into the sky before the fight was on. Tenshi blitzed towards me with that obsence speed of hers; however, I reached out and stretched her timeline out. It wouldn't last all that long, but it was enough for me.
I then gestured with my parasol and cast a Wall of Force surrounding her in the invisible wall that could not be broken through unless you had disintegration effects on hand.
I then drew upon my sense of Destruction and primed four Eldritch Blasts along with Caladbolg as Tenshi slammed into the wall first to no effect however, her sword flickred, and her second broke the wall like it was not there.
However, as she continued her charge toward me, I sent out the Caladbolg, followed by the blasts. The twisting sword spun towards her as she parried it with her blade, the mist around it flickering once again, allowing her to cut through Caladbolg. The beams of purple and blue energy then slammed into Tenshi; however, even caught up, she managed to dodge the first and second.
Thankfully, the others hit her, carving groves across her arms, and the only one that I cared about blew a crater in her wrist, forcing her to drop her blade. Her red eyes locked on me as she flicked a finger, sending massive rocks towards me. However, Yuuka's training meant that such a surprise attack was much less effective, allowing me to teleport out of the way as the Grimoire grew.
I could feel another item appear in my hand; however, I quickly shunted it away with a Gap. I couldn't be distracted by new items in the middle of the fight. Unforantly, that split second I had been distracted was enough time for Tenshi's sword to be back in her grasp as her wounds were mostly healed.
Pulling upon a good chunk of my reserves, I reached out my hand and slammed stop on the area surrounding Tenshi. This ability was tiring but should allow me around thirty to forty seconds to prepare as time itself was frozen in a fifteen-foot sphere around the celestial.
Reaching into a Gap, I stuck my hand in one of my many bags of Dust and drew upon its innate magical energy, causing it to vanish as I refilled my stores.
I then opened the Gate of Babylon wide and primed it with dozens of weapons, primarily mundane but with a few more exotic such as Caladbolg or Huntring. Following that up, I held out my hand, not holding my parasol, and cast Darkness around Tenshi; that should help prevent her from dodging if she couldn't.
I knew I had another spell or two left before the time stop ended, so I reached down and grabbed my shadow, pulling it out of the ground, ignoring the faint fuzz I could see at the edge of my vision from this spell.
It was Resonant Echo and allowed me to pull up my shadow to cast a spell on my behalf. As my Echo focused on its own Eldritch blast, I tapped my chest and applied Armor of Agthays before preparing my own Eldritch Blast.
The time stopped and then fizzled out, leaving Tenshi disoriented and confused, but she seemed to be able to see through the Darkness spell just fine, which, while annoying, was not the end of the world.
However, before she could do anything, the arsenal of swords flew out of the Gate of Babylon, and while Tenshi was able to bob and weave around a decent chunk of them, the sheer mass meant that she accumulated scraps and cuts.
The more significant issue for her was the exotic weapons littered throughout the mass that required a decent chunk of her focus to deflect or escape damage as unharmed as possible.
Unfroantly for me, it seemed like her blade allowed her to slice through even the more exotic blades even if she emerged from them battered and bruised in such a manner that even her regeneration would need time to heal.
My Echo and I then sent our combined salvo of purple and blue energy at Tenshi, whose sword clashed against the first, then cut through the second and third as her body moved around the fourth. However, I then tugged at her timeline, stretching her out, allowing the remaining four to slam into her torso and blow a hole through her chest.
I stopped as she threw up her free hand, even as iridescent blood trailed down the hole in her chest that was quickly stitching itself closed. "Your win Godling!" Tenshi shouted with a smile on her face even as she wiped away some of the blood that she had coughed up as we both floated toward the ground.
"I must admit you have skill; that time stop was inspired!" Tenshi praised even as her wounds fully sealed itself with nary a mark, and her clothes regrew shortly after, something I did make a mental note to ask about later.
However, I focused my mind back on the talk, catching up to what she said. I chuckled slightly as I rubbed the back of my neck. "I'm going to be honest: if I let you get momentum, I was not sure I was going to win," I told her, and that was the truth. She was powerful, but it was clear that she was a melee-focused combatant bolstered by her control of the earth. That meant if she was able to get up close, that sword of hers would let her do nasty work.
"If you don't mind me asking, what is that sword?" I asked as we entered my church and then traveled through the Path I had set up toward my house. Tenshi grinned at the question, clearly existed to be able to boast about her weapon.
"This is the Sword of Hisou, and after just one strike, it allows me to defeat anybody with a single blow!" She boasted as I finally arrived at the sunflower field, causing Tenshi to freeze as she looked around before continuing onward with me pushing open the door to my house open for her.
I then gathered the ingredients for mint tea and quickly brewed it, helped by my speeding up the water's timeline so it would boil faster. I then sat down at my kitchen table and poured both of us a cup.
Taking a long sip, I relaxed into my chair as Tenshi took a sip and then took another hesitant sip before setting it down, clearly unsure what to think. "So what normally happens in these after-combat talks?" I asked. I didn't have any plan for this talk or not having this sort of thing done in the past.
"Normally, it's a lot of drinking and partying," Tenshi said as she leaned on the table with her elbows before picking up the tea to take another sip. "Huh, well, I suppose I'll ask what Heaven is like," I said, provoking a slight scowl from Tenshi as she set down her cup with a harsh clink.
"It's boring, filled with nothing but fuddy duddys who say 'do this, do that, oh don't have a full plate, oh don't make an earthquake,'" she says, raising her voice in a clear imitation of somebody.
"I thought Heaven was supposed to be idyllic?" I said, tilting my head in confusion, "That's the problem," Tenshi complained as she sighed, "I have a bunch of people who have done nothing but sit around for years with nothing important to do, so they start finding things to do, and it's all boring things," she said rolling her eyes as my Grimoire pulsed and grew.
I blinked as my head was filled with a strange recipe for Butterscotch Pie. Tilting my head, I pushed that aside; even if the mental recipe was making me drool, I was talking with somebody.
"You know," Tenshi said, tapping her finger on the table thoughtfully, "Let's go to Heaven!" she shouted as she lunged forward and pulled me out by the wrist out of your chair, "I think it'll be great!" she said with a broad smile as she pulled me along. At the same time, while she was clearly excited by the idea, she was still not pulling all that hard, allowing me to slip out if you wanted.
"Sure," I said with a shrug and faint smile of my own, "I've always wanted to see Heaven," you continued; of course, the original idea was that I would see it after my death, but you weren't going to turn down the prospect of seeing it now.
So, pushing off the ground, the two of you headed out of your home and towards the Youkai Mountain, ready to make the ascent toward Heaven.
Powers Gained
Sand Wand
This lovely little wand here has a magical ability to control sand, though admittedly only in a handful of preset forms. First off, it can cause sand to levitate, usually in the form of a cube. Basically, it slides it upwards a short distance, albeit only for a few seconds at a time. The range on this is quite nice, anywhere you can see AND, if you're absolutely certain that there's sand on the other side, even through walls. If you have magical energy to spare, it can even summon some sand for you to work with.
Butterscotch-Cinnamon Pie Recipe
This is a recipe for home-made pie- Quite possibly the best pie ever made. If made using monster cooking techniques, a single slice of this is delicious enough to fully restore the consumer's vitality. However, the ingredients are rather specific, and to bring out its true potential, the pie must be home- cooked with fire magic. But the results... You simply can't argue.
After10,000 years 6 months, I return. Honestly, I don't really have any reason for vanishing except that I just stopped writing this for some reason apologize for that. However, I have returned, and while I can't promise chapters like I did before I will still keep chugging along at this story hopefully getting another chapter around this size out every week. Comments, corrections, and all that good stuff would be appreciated, thanks for reading!
Peeking around, I saw a distinct lack of Reimu or anybody, which likely meant they were out doing something. Humming under my breath, I thought about how exactly I would find Tenshi; I didn't have her hair or really anything useful that could be used to lock on Scry, which meant finding her the old-fashioned way.
However, I was thankfully saved by Reimu stumbling out from the depths of the shrine I had not poked around in out of respect for her privacy. "Hello?" she asked while rubbing her eyes, clearly just having woken up despite it being mid-morning.
"Greetings," I said with a polite nod, "Do you know where Tenshi is? I am looking for that rematch I promised," I ask her, to which she shakes her head somewhat grumpily, "Do I look like I know where that celestial is?" she asks, raising an eyebrow before yawning, "She'll either be in Heaven or flying around picking fights, shes consistent like that," Reimu tells me before gesturing me away in half-hearted shooing motion.
I merely give her another polite nod before hopping up into the air and heading out. Trying to find Tenshi in Gensoyko would be like finding a needle in a haystack, impossible unless I had a magnet.
In this case, I didn't have a magnet so much as an Atlas; opening a Path back towards my home, I drifted down the grassy area before entering the sunflower field and then my house.
Grabbing the Atlas from where I had placed it in my room, I headed back outside and sat in my rocking chair before cracking the book open. Muttering under my breath, I guided my finger along its pages. At the same time, I referred by my blossoming godly senses as my finger soon settled nearbye the human village that the Atlas showed.
Of course, the Atlas was not perfectly accurate as it tracked dreams, and they only had a loose relation to space, but it was good enough for a start.
Snapping the thick book closed, I stood up and, with a flick of my wrist, sent it through a Gap and back inside my house. I then stepped off the porch and flew off toward the human village.
As I approached it, I altered my course to pass by it, carefully watched by the guards, who relaxed somewhat when they saw that I was not intent on entering the village.
I rolled my eyes with a huff when I saw that the Atlas had been pointing me toward my new shrine; from what little I knew of her, Tenshi was interested in new things, so of course, a shrine popping up in a few minutes would interest her.
Landing in front of the shrine, I entered the unsurprising sight of Tenshi lounging in one of the pews, her booted feet kicked up on the one in front of her with her strange dress splayed out around her.
As she heard me enter, her red eyes flicked over to me, and a smile blossomed on her face. "I was wondering when you would get here!" she shouted before hopping to her feet, "Well, let's get this fight started," she stated, her smile shifting from a somewhat smug smirk from being proven correct to a more bloodthirsty grin of a fighter ready for an upcoming battle.
"You want to start now?" I asked, to which she merely nodded in reply, "Of course, we got interrupted last time, and after we fight, we can do all the tea and talking stuff you folk enjoy so much," she said, tapping her fingers on her forearms making it clear that she was ready to start now.
"Fair enough," I said with a grin of my own, "After you." I continued gesturing her outside, which she did. When we were out, she clicked her fingers, conjuring that flaming blade she had used before.
We both took a moment to assess each other as we floated into the sky before the fight was on. Tenshi blitzed towards me with that obsence speed of hers; however, I reached out and stretched her timeline out. It wouldn't last all that long, but it was enough for me.
I then gestured with my parasol and cast a Wall of Force surrounding her in the invisible wall that could not be broken through unless you had disintegration effects on hand.
I then drew upon my sense of Destruction and primed four Eldritch Blasts along with Caladbolg as Tenshi slammed into the wall first to no effect however, her sword flickred, and her second broke the wall like it was not there.
However, as she continued her charge toward me, I sent out the Caladbolg, followed by the blasts. The twisting sword spun towards her as she parried it with her blade, the mist around it flickering once again, allowing her to cut through Caladbolg. The beams of purple and blue energy then slammed into Tenshi; however, even caught up, she managed to dodge the first and second.
Thankfully, the others hit her, carving groves across her arms, and the only one that I cared about blew a crater in her wrist, forcing her to drop her blade. Her red eyes locked on me as she flicked a finger, sending massive rocks towards me. However, Yuuka's training meant that such a surprise attack was much less effective, allowing me to teleport out of the way as the Grimoire grew.
I could feel another item appear in my hand; however, I quickly shunted it away with a Gap. I couldn't be distracted by new items in the middle of the fight. Unforantly, that split second I had been distracted was enough time for Tenshi's sword to be back in her grasp as her wounds were mostly healed.
Pulling upon a good chunk of my reserves, I reached out my hand and slammed stop on the area surrounding Tenshi. This ability was tiring but should allow me around thirty to forty seconds to prepare as time itself was frozen in a fifteen-foot sphere around the celestial.
Reaching into a Gap, I stuck my hand in one of my many bags of Dust and drew upon its innate magical energy, causing it to vanish as I refilled my stores.
I then opened the Gate of Babylon wide and primed it with dozens of weapons, primarily mundane but with a few more exotic such as Caladbolg or Huntring. Following that up, I held out my hand, not holding my parasol, and cast Darkness around Tenshi; that should help prevent her from dodging if she couldn't.
I knew I had another spell or two left before the time stop ended, so I reached down and grabbed my shadow, pulling it out of the ground, ignoring the faint fuzz I could see at the edge of my vision from this spell.
It was Resonant Echo and allowed me to pull up my shadow to cast a spell on my behalf. As my Echo focused on its own Eldritch blast, I tapped my chest and applied Armor of Agthays before preparing my own Eldritch Blast.
The time stopped and then fizzled out, leaving Tenshi disoriented and confused, but she seemed to be able to see through the Darkness spell just fine, which, while annoying, was not the end of the world.
However, before she could do anything, the arsenal of swords flew out of the Gate of Babylon, and while Tenshi was able to bob and weave around a decent chunk of them, the sheer mass meant that she accumulated scraps and cuts.
The more significant issue for her was the exotic weapons littered throughout the mass that required a decent chunk of her focus to deflect or escape damage as unharmed as possible.
Unfroantly for me, it seemed like her blade allowed her to slice through even the more exotic blades even if she emerged from them battered and bruised in such a manner that even her regeneration would need time to heal.
My Echo and I then sent our combined salvo of purple and blue energy at Tenshi, whose sword clashed against the first, then cut through the second and third as her body moved around the fourth. However, I then tugged at her timeline, stretching her out, allowing the remaining four to slam into her torso and blow a hole through her chest.
I stopped as she threw up her free hand, even as iridescent blood trailed down the hole in her chest that was quickly stitching itself closed. "Your win Godling!" Tenshi shouted with a smile on her face even as she wiped away some of the blood that she had coughed up as we both floated toward the ground.
"I must admit you have skill; that time stop was inspired!" Tenshi praised even as her wounds fully sealed itself with nary a mark, and her clothes regrew shortly after, something I did make a mental note to ask about later.
However, I focused my mind back on the talk, catching up to what she said. I chuckled slightly as I rubbed the back of my neck. "I'm going to be honest: if I let you get momentum, I was not sure I was going to win," I told her, and that was the truth. She was powerful, but it was clear that she was a melee-focused combatant bolstered by her control of the earth. That meant if she was able to get up close, that sword of hers would let her do nasty work.
"If you don't mind me asking, what is that sword?" I asked as we entered my church and then traveled through the Path I had set up toward my house. Tenshi grinned at the question, clearly existed to be able to boast about her weapon.
"This is the Sword of Hisou, and after just one strike, it allows me to defeat anybody with a single blow!" She boasted as I finally arrived at the sunflower field, causing Tenshi to freeze as she looked around before continuing onward with me pushing open the door to my house open for her.
I then gathered the ingredients for mint tea and quickly brewed it, helped by my speeding up the water's timeline so it would boil faster. I then sat down at my kitchen table and poured both of us a cup.
Taking a long sip, I relaxed into my chair as Tenshi took a sip and then took another hesitant sip before setting it down, clearly unsure what to think. "So what normally happens in these after-combat talks?" I asked. I didn't have any plan for this talk or not having this sort of thing done in the past.
"Normally, it's a lot of drinking and partying," Tenshi said as she leaned on the table with her elbows before picking up the tea to take another sip. "Huh, well, I suppose I'll ask what Heaven is like," I said, provoking a slight scowl from Tenshi as she set down her cup with a harsh clink.
"It's boring, filled with nothing but fuddy duddys who say 'do this, do that, oh don't have a full plate, oh don't make an earthquake,'" she says, raising her voice in a clear imitation of somebody.
"I thought Heaven was supposed to be idyllic?" I said, tilting my head in confusion, "That's the problem," Tenshi complained as she sighed, "I have a bunch of people who have done nothing but sit around for years with nothing important to do, so they start finding things to do, and it's all boring things," she said rolling her eyes as my Grimoire pulsed and grew.
I blinked as my head was filled with a strange recipe for Butterscotch Pie. Tilting my head, I pushed that aside; even if the mental recipe was making me drool, I was talking with somebody.
"You know," Tenshi said, tapping her finger on the table thoughtfully, "Let's go to Heaven!" she shouted as she lunged forward and pulled me out by the wrist out of your chair, "I think it'll be great!" she said with a broad smile as she pulled me along. At the same time, while she was clearly excited by the idea, she was still not pulling all that hard, allowing me to slip out if you wanted.
"Sure," I said with a shrug and faint smile of my own, "I've always wanted to see Heaven," you continued; of course, the original idea was that I would see it after my death, but you weren't going to turn down the prospect of seeing it now.
So, pushing off the ground, the two of you headed out of your home and towards the Youkai Mountain, ready to make the ascent toward Heaven.
Powers Gained
Sand Wand
This lovely little wand here has a magical ability to control sand, though admittedly only in a handful of preset forms. First off, it can cause sand to levitate, usually in the form of a cube. Basically, it slides it upwards a short distance, albeit only for a few seconds at a time. The range on this is quite nice, anywhere you can see AND, if you're absolutely certain that there's sand on the other side, even through walls. If you have magical energy to spare, it can even summon some sand for you to work with.
Butterscotch-Cinnamon Pie Recipe
This is a recipe for home-made pie- Quite possibly the best pie ever made. If made using monster cooking techniques, a single slice of this is delicious enough to fully restore the consumer's vitality. However, the ingredients are rather specific, and to bring out its true potential, the pie must be home- cooked with fire magic. But the results... You simply can't argue.
After
- Location
- Planet Earth
I keep expecting/wanting the MC to wind up in Harry Potter, solely based on my initial preconceptions due to the title.
Personally, I wouldn't want that because:
A. It's generic and obvious
B.I dislike Harry Potter
C. It's magic system is too soft